Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

ON LIVING AND DYING AND LIVING AGAIN.

I can only write what my memory allows me to write. So, the better my recall-capacity, the more I can remember, the larger is my repertoire of recollection.

I know: with increasing age the past suffers, and, perhaps, events become selective with the favorable retained, and the not so good experiences suppressed. I admit: Homo sum: I am a fallible fellow.

Yet. I find myself in a somewhat more advantageous position than most of my contemporaries.  I am grateful that my body, soul, and spirit are in good working order, and my capacity to think back, seems unimpaired. To me, anyway. Perhaps I am deluding myself, as there are few witnesses alive to repute my past events, so you have to take my word for it.

Why do I live?

I believe that I am alive to live. LIVE in capital letters. Jesus emphatically stated this truth, recorded in John 10: 10: “I have come to bring LIFE and that to the full.” Only an alive person can fulfill that pledge, alive meaning a full orbed existence: not only in good physical shape, but in full accordance with the Latin dictum: Mens Sana in Corpore Sano, a sound mind in a sound body. We are a unity. I enthusiastically endorse the totality of the human: we are not only a body: we also are a soul. The whole human soul is in the whole human body and thus in every part of the body, just as God is present in the entire universe.

The body dies, the soul lives on.

Jesus never mentioned ‘death’: he always corrected the mourners by calling ‘death’ by its proper name: ‘Sleep’.

This connotation has theological implications, because this sleep is not permanent. As a believing Christian I confess that there comes a wake-up call. That awakening comes for all who ever lived. And then there is that dreaded conclusion: Judgement.

Here is what Google tells me:

Depending on the translation, the word spelled “judgement” (with an “e”) appears approximately 100 times in the Bible (e.g., in the King James Version, it appears 112 times). If you include the American spelling “judgment” (no “e”), the word appears over 400 times in standard concordances.

There is no escape. One of the laws of ecology states: Nothing comes free.

There always is a final reckoning: That’s the wake-up call. The Bible is totally unambiguous on that score.

More about death.

The first time I saw ‘death’, was in the summer of 1940, when my mother’s farther, my Opa, suddenly died at 70. Heart attack. All his life he had worked on his farm, burning off his rich in cholesterol diet and continued this same regime in retirement.

I still can picture him in his glass-covered coffin, in the church hall where he had been an elder. A big fly buzzing about his face. He was ‘at rest’, and so was his spirit.

My wife of 67 years died close to 6 years ago, in her 93d year. Not died, but asleep. I know. In my dreams she often is a silent presence. Always in the background. It will be different for me when I will meet her again in eternity. Changed, as I too have changed physically and mentally. In eternity, men and women will be totally equal: Both of us being totally human, totally reflecting our full humanity. No more sexually different, yet distinct female and male. Any further description is mere speculation, except, in Jesus’ words, we all will be like the angels in heaven. Yes, sex-less.

And then there is hell……

Back to the ‘spirit’ angle, and more speculation: Where does hell enter the picture? With the fading away of going to heaven – the renewed earth being our eternal habitat – so a physical hell too has disappeared. Where is hell?

I am starting to believe that – in our soul-saturated afterlife – we all will rehash, recollect, be forced to review in intricate detail, the totality of our lives from beginning to end, from birth to death, and nakedly face the consequences of our actions, such as that cup of drink to a thirsty person, but also our refusal to do so. We will see where Jesus touched us, but also where we brushed him off.

I know, there also are the Hitlers, the Stalin sort, the Mother Teresa type, the God-fearing pious and the Goddam deniers.

These times from death/sleep to awakening/judgement will, for many, be a frightening intermission, confronted with their genuine self.

Jesus saw all this, and said, “Many are called, and few are chosen” (Matthew 22:14). He also said, looking to our times, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8).

Paul writes: ”Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. (Philippians 2: 12). “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith–and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”. (Ephesians 2: 8).

ETERNAL LIFE IS A GIFT.

IS IT TOO LATE TO CHANGE?                  

“Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.”                         Revelation 22: 11.

So, what does his text from the very last chapter in the Bible, really tell?

To me, in my guts, these words point the finger at me, in our oil-obsessed state, in our poisonous dependence on fossil fuels, enslaving me in the process.

To me it alludes that now, anno 2026, everything has become what it is, which means that the course of life for us Westerners, has been set, and no deviation, no turn from evil to good, is no longer possible.

Yes, that sounds scary. No wonder I have been called a pessimist.

To me it suggests that we have boxed ourselves in, we have burned our bridges to the past, and have set in motion Jesus’ prophetic words, as recorded in Matthew 24.

To me it appears that, among the very last words of the Bible, there is this terrible warning, this final reminder that everything is conspiring to conceal the Truth, that the ship of salvation is leaving the shore and that the number of passengers is fixed.

Is there an ‘Unless’, is there a ‘caveat’?

Yes, the fellow next to Jesus on Calvary’s hill had a last minute ‘metanoia’, so, yes, it’s never too late to embrace the radical change that the Greek word ‘metanoia’ implies.

That word points to a sudden turn, a new ‘way of life’, the embracing of an eternal lifestyle, a clean break with our polluting and destructive modern strife for ‘convenience’ and ‘gadget’ domination.

Metanoia indicates stopping, thinking and making a U turn. Metanoia implies reconsidering traveling the easy, mechanised way of moving, and taking ‘The Road less traveled.’

The Final Battle.

A return to rude reality reveals that the terrible truth is that the battle between Good, personified in Jesus and Evil, serving Satan, is reaching a climax. What we are witnessing in living color, is ‘the Final Battle’.

The terrible truth today is God has cursed our society with insanity. The pursuit of ‘economic growth’ by means of polluting and poisonous petrol products, is pure stupidity. We are denying the ‘Christian’ truth in church and everywhere, that truth being that we have been fashioned for an eternal marriage with God’s Holy Creation, as the previous chapters in Revelation reveal.

Today, not only are wars fought to extend our carbon dominance, we are also led by a ‘madman’, vastly accelerating the coming collapse.

We now have painted ourselves in a corner, have created a carbon-dominance, from which there is no escape.  

Why has this become the case?

The reason is simple. We have become embedded in a way of life from which there is no alternative anymore. All the preaching in the world cannot change our course of life, which inadvertently leads to creational collapse. Sad to say – but it must be said – is that, by and large, (Thank God, there are exceptions) most churches are part and parcel of this path to ‘prosperity’, sticking to the Heaven Heresy. Revelation 22:11,in the last Bible chapter, refutes that claim:

“Let the one who does wrong continue to do wrong; let the vile person continue to be vile; let the one who does right continue to do right; and let the holy person continue to be holy.”                        

Want more justification?

It now is generally acknowledged that we are in an age when unfixable problems are piling up: war, tyranny, housing shortages, climate change, a looming hot summer with high forest-fire risk, just to mention a few dangers.

We have also opened the AI Pandora’s box, at a time when the earth is in disarray. Today there is no world government that can impose constraints on the for-profit corporations currently controlling AI models and research. The US has no appetite to effectively and even-handedly regulate those corporations, even as they do catastrophic damage to the environment, democracy, and society in general. The Pope called AI “The Tower of Babel”.

And then there is El Nino, no ‘little brother’ anymore.

El Nino is on the way, coming as a judge in all the earth. God often punished

his people through natural disasters. He did this in Elisha’s time through years of drought; He is doing it again today. I agree with Bonhoeffer, God and Creation are like mother and child, a connotation spelled out in El Nino – the male child, and La Nina, its female counterpart. All part of the Creation family.

No Trinity but Quartinity?

I have suggested this before: there is more than a Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit: There is, actually, a Quartinity, and, just as Trinity, also of human origin. The Quartinity consists of Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, and God’s Creation: all four reveal God’s Power. God sent Christ to redeem the world, the cosmos, and again will use Creation, the innate forces of the Universe, to show his almighty power.

It’s never too late to change: Thank God. The Spirit will make the yoke easy and the burden light when trying to, now already, live the New Creation life. John 10:10 spells it out: Christ came to bring LIFE, and that in abundance.

FROM AI TO EI.

From Artificial Intelligence to Eternal Intelligence.

Let me be honest: I am a great believer in the 4 laws of ecology, and will throw them at you right here: “Everything is connected to everything else; Nature knows best; Nothing disappears; There always is a day of reckoning.” Memorize them. Affix them to your doorposts.

To me these four rules are Holy Writ.

Let me be honest again: Yes, I am not afraid to admit it: I have a ‘philosophy’, a grounding in a faith-commitment, that, for me, rules my life, directs my coming and my going. I imagine, it also is my motive and my                                                                    motif of writing my weekly blogs.

In a nutshell, the basis of my thinking, this ‘principle’, is that history, from the Fall, through all of human endeavor, through World Wars, through Today and Beyond, has only one goal, one end result: the Telos, the fulfillment of history, the glorious return of Christ. One of the books I translated has as its title: Between the Beginning and the End: A Radical Kingdom Vision. That pretty well sums it up.

Here is something to ponder.

During the entire history, a hidden battle has been waged, so inobtrusive, so behind the scenes, that it is almost never mentioned or recognized. Reading Scripture with an open mind, however, this battle is easily detected. The Opponent started this struggle in the Garden of Eden, and has continued it ever since. This fight has centered on the concept of the Kingdom, and Jesus’ message to seek it. “Seek first the Kingdom”, involves searching creation for the best way to live, enhancing God’s world in the process.

I see a direct correlation between the Holocaust and Hitler, and setting back scientific discovery, as the Jews always were the most intelligent of all people. The killing of Jesus’ compatriots stifled intellectual development for decades: it could have led to Eternal Intelligence, which is our divine mandate.

Now the final battle looms. “But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.” (Revelation 12: 12)

 Today I see that another suppression of intellectual progress is underway, instigated by Trump in his quest to stop, delay, stifle and set back higher learning aiming for the same result. The cutback in USAID also will result in millions of deaths.

Both Hitler and Trump are part of the Age-old story: already Pharaoh tried it with the Jacob Clan 3500 years ago in Egypt.

Today Revelation 12: 12, cited above, is coming to us, in all its consequences. Every day we witness the development of new weapons and greater possibilities for destruction; every day we witness new inventions powered or initiated by AI – Artificial Intelligence. It seems as if God for centuries has blindfolded humanity to prevent them from seeing all the planetary powers and possibilities, and now suddenly he ripped away the blindfold in our days.

This wild, unrestrained progress of human thought and discovery comes with both a good dose of triumph, but also with visions of frightening nightmares. We are confronted with situations, internally, spiritually, and morally that make it impossible to cope, that make us feel helpless, and that give us the unnerving notion that we are racing toward indescribable confusion and degeneration.

The utterly senseless actions of the leader of the USA, the thwarting and reversing of climate-saving efforts, the assumption of god-like powers, the warring ventures into historically volatile Middle East, all multiply the dangers to God’s precious earth. It’s all because Satan was kicked out of heaven, and landed, feet first, on the very planet we inhabit.

Take note: We now are in the eye of the cyclone: everything around us is cracking up, on edge, and at the breaking point. Paul is right when he in 1 Corinthians 7: 31, writes: “For this world in its present form is passing away”.

Time to reflect and look for Eternal Intelligence, not AI, but EI.

Jesus’ constant theme in the short three years he went about healing and teaching, was Peace on Earth, Eternal Intelligence.

Peace on Earth means much more than absence of war: the order of nature will be altered, because the old world will die, and ‘everything will be made new’. Gone will be forest fires. Gone will be hurricanes. Gone

 will be wars.

Then the brokenness in all strata of creation will be healed.

“In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety. (Hosea 2: 18)

Believe me: Everything is connected to everything else; Nature knows best; Nothing disappears; There always is a day of reckoning.

The coming El Nino is the opening salvo of the Day of Reckoning.

MAD ENOUGH TO GO NUCLEAR?

Total depravity displayed. The devil is in the details.

 “I am thinking about bringing the number one attraction anywhere in the world the man who gets much larger audiences than Elvis in his prime, and he does so without a guitar, the man who loves our country more than anyone else, and the man who some say is the greatest president in history”.                                    Donald J. Trump.

This is one of the many quotes Trump has made of ‘self-praise’. The Dutch have a saying: Eigen Roem, Stinks, or, “Self-Praise Smells”. The stink in Washington is overwhelming the world, witness the Iran invasion: Trump’s hubris and stupidity, arrogance and foolishness displayed to the world for all to see. His rashness and lack of judgement have caught up on him, and now his ignorance has become an object of universal ridicule.

It all would be a bad joke, if only Trump would suffer humiliation. The problem is that his actions have consequences far beyond a blow to his supersized ego: millions if not billions will suffer and die.

The portal to the Delphi Temple had one inscription: Gnooti Seauton: Know Thyself.

To “know thyself” is to gauge core values, and, more difficult, is to recognize blind spots. It means examining what drives one’s actions, and seeing limitations. With Trump? He certainly is a case study of the opposite.

I often turn to the Bible to seek my guidance. Solomon was a wise ruler. Trump would benefit from reading Solomon’s Proverbs.

Here is one:

“When a man’s folly brings his way to ruin, his heart rages against the LORD.”                              Proverbs 19: 3

My background.

Born and educated in the Netherlands, its language is still part of my make-up.

“Wie God verlaat heeft smart op smart te vrezen” teaches Psalm 32: 5, translated as “Abandoning God, harming his Creation, poses pain upon pain”.

When in a Christian elementary school, in grade 3 – 5, every Friday we were assigned to memorize a rhymed Psalm verse, to be recited and sung in class every Monday morning. I remember my mother helping me to drill them into my brain over the weekend. The long-lasting benefits have been that I have a repertoire of Dutch Psalm verses that now, after almost 90 years, is still a constant source of edification for me. Often, first thing in the morning, I wake up singing one of these songs. Also, a sign of senility?

Back to Trump.

Trump is a symptom, not a cause. Why he was elected by the American people, portrays their mentality, dominated by “The American Religion”, which Dr. Harold Bloom, the eminent religious scholar, states that it has ceased to be ‘Christian’, dominated as it is by Gnosticism, an ancient Greek heresy. It teaches that “Spirit is good, and that the human body, which is matter, is evil”. This falsehood is reflected in the church’s ‘heaven’ teaching, and in Trump’s efforts to curtail or even abolish healthcare and climate saving measures, of which his followers approve.

Here is a ditty that Trump and his true believers would underwrite:

Donald J. Trump, Donald J. Trump

A name that makes you jump,

The greatest ruler yet

His wisdom’s a sure bet,

His IQ of the highest set. (2X)

Donald J. Trump, Donald J. Trump,

He’s the champ, not a mere chump

The wisest man around,

No smarter can be found

His clever actions do abound. (2X)

(there is a tune to these verses)

Boredom is dangerous.

However, it seems that Trump is bored. It looks that he has given up on governing — even governing aimed at consolidating his own power and legacy. He increasingly wants to punish everyone whom he imagines has wronged him, but has lost all interest in making the government work. His new, detached attitude, is even more dangerous than his hands on involvement.

Back to naked reality.

This man, on the throne in the White House – color his soul black – reminds me of a book I translated, written by the late Dr. J.H.Bavinck, professor of Missions at the Free University in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It deals with the Bible’s last book: Revelation.

It was written after World War II, when the memory of Nagasaki and Hiroshima – both destroyed by atom bombs – was still fresh on his mind.

Writers often are prophetic, and, when open to Scripture, there too prophecies are evident. Take the section on “The Fall of Babylon”, dealt with in Revelation 19. Here is Bavinck’s comment: “The Empire is cursed with insanity”. (Now evident in its President.)

Prophetic Bavinck writes: “There is in Babylon (read the present world) a simmering spark of resistance (now appearing), that can burst into a full-fledged revolution. …….There is only one solution, one radical and total cure: a nuclear bomb.” I wonder: Will that happen in Iran?

Both Bavinck’s and Revelation, affirm: “The final judgement is upon the world in the form of natural disasters, earthquakes, pandemics, no human technology can prevent.”

There is a MADMAN IN POWER. Be prepared for mad actions.

WHY AM I HERE?

I was reading in Romans a few says ago, and thought about its author, Paul. I imagined how he, at an early age, perhaps less than 10 years old, made the hazardous trip from Tarsus, a Roman enclave, to Jerusalem, some 1,000 km overland. To be more exact: from mid Turkey through Syria – on the way wondering and questioning and learning – and then on to Jerusalem, all part of the Roman Empire.

In these three countries Roman’s mighty legions had constructed safe highways. Still, a 1,000 km trek, was, in those days, quite a venture, by foot, I imagine, staying in caravanserais each night, traveling for weeks on end: and that as a young teenager: it took a special youngster to undertake such a journey. Bu then, Paul was an exceptional person!

I speculate Paul was the son of well-off and devout parents, who probably had guaranteed safe passage with a Roman convoy, as the family were Roman citizens.  All along the trek to the Holy City, sacred Jeru-Salem, he dreamed of glory, dreamed of discovering God’s Greatness. He had inherited his parents’ piety, their devotion, their daily reciting of the laws given to Moses, and drilled into him every day. Paul, himself, had early in life, not only become devout, but fanatically so.

Ever seen fanaticism displayed? I have. The university prep school I attended in the 1940’s in Groningen, the Netherlands, was also a religious battleground. The city had 4 large “Reformed” churches, each with at least 1,000 members. A dogmatic dispute in 1943, during the German Occupation, about an issue, now long forgotten, caused 2 churches to secede, dividing families, and leaving a mark also in my school, attended by the fanatic sons of the clergy, creating hatred and hostility. Paul, in his zeal for the ‘right’ way of life, also suffered from this overzealous sentiment. It took a special intervention by Jesus himself, to cure Paul of his fanaticism, and substituting it with Love.

Jesus needed this man: Christianity needed this man. We, today need this man, the missionary man, who wrote the letter to the Romans, and to us. This amazing man, this former fanatic, who welcomed the stoning of Stephanus, the gifted evangelist, who hated the early Christians the way I have seen it at my Christian school where some students refused to attend morning devotions when conducted by ‘the other side’.

Just as Paul, I too was sent to a special place of learning. My parents, too, had great expectations, especially as I, from early on, had wanted to become a missionary, go to the Netherlands Indies, and convert the heathens there.  However, upon graduation, I was drafted into the Dutch army, the country being engaged in a colonial dispute. I then chose Canada, instead, upon completion of my national duty.

Back to Paul.

So, just like Paul, just as any and every Christian, I have a task in life, a task to be a witness. I mentioned Paul’s conversion. I too have such a sudden experience. Just growing up in a Christian family, school, church, does prepare the soil, gives a good start, but can also be dangerous, as ‘faith’ becomes a routine matter, and being a member of a church a birthright.

In my youth staying with ‘the faith of the fathers’ was an automatic matter. With little or no mobility, the path to ‘heaven’ was paved with historic beliefs, clung to with tenacious tentacles, unquestioned.

My conversion, however, was a different matter. I can pinpoint it precisely: the summer of 1973, age 45. Two books did the miracle for me, one questioning the “Heaven” destination, the other the impossibility of ‘perpetual economic growth’. Both drastically changed my entire view on life and eternity.

How then shall we live? Or more accutely: How shall I live? Just stay on the path that has been the way with most people? Don’t upset the routine? Just

grow old and die?

That describes life for most of us in the Western world. A life quite uncomplicated, but the question remains whether a life such as that has any merit at all.

Why am I here?  

Life in my grandparents’ time occurred in slow motion and was often hard and difficult, but the final product showed the individual’s talents and hallmark. Compare this to the millions of workers today who are stuck in routine jobs.

The question is: What is the meaning of such a life? What

should such a person feel about his life when reached the

end of days? What has he or she accomplished? What was the

contribution to the world? Will AI now destroy even that?

I increasingly believe that I am called to prepare myself for life -LIFE- in eternity. Jesus defined it quite simply: “I have come to bring ‘life’, and that to the full”.

,

Paul pinpoints it precisely in Romans 1: 20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

Why am I here?

I try to pay heed to Paul, the pious and persistent Paul, converted from religious fanaticism to creation-caregiver: for me he has pointed the Way: I am here to prepare myself for a creation-caring life, as our destination is God’s renewed creation.

I try to live that way today.

THE WORLD IS CHANGING.

“It was the age of heaven-heat, it was the age of heedless humans.”

I live in a Christian Retirement Centre. May be someday I will comment on its Christian aspect, as I increasingly believe that the adjective “Christian” needs be redefined, but that is for another day.

Of course, both sexes are represented here: a few couples, but mostly single people of which women are in the majority, almost all widows.

In line with the general population where women live longer than men, and, where in most marriages, they usually marry men a few years older, women outnumber men here by a ratio of 4:1.

From a strictly gerontological point of view, I find it intriguing to observe the goings-on, the intermingling, the social interactions. The unattached men are also all widowers, and there does not seem to be any desire on either part for courtship. Both male and female stick to their orientation.

In general, it is a peaceful, and even serene, and, perhaps, a somewhat boring community. In that sense the sex scenery, already reflect a bit what Jesus depicted when asked to comment on ‘marriage’: his words: “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven”. Matthew 22:30.

Hmm. No comment.

In a world at loggerheads with itself, my final years here, where every need is pretty well provided, are tranquil and thoroughly settled. Perhaps complacency is the best description. The people here have lived their lives during an age where prosperity, and abundance, good medical care and old age pensions have been the norm, actually a complete exception in human history. Most are immigrants from Europe; they arrived at the start of the economic boom, and cashed in their homes, assuring a secure retirement. Generous government help – pension and free medical care – has made this – my – generation the most prosperous ever, while their/my grandchildren face a totally different world.

We now are on a verge of radical change.

This ideal situation displayed here, where I spend my final years, will soon have to deal with the reality of the problems society face, in the form of inflation, soaring deficits, unpredictable weather, food shortages, everything under the sun, including unbearable heat.

Yes, Climate change is going to reshape everything, from disease patterns, to animal migration routines, from flooding, heat stress and ecosystem disruptions to economic disasters: nothing will be spared. The all-round stability on which our lives are based, and makes my final years, living in luxury, possible, will become history. We have reached a “point of no return” as runaway global heating cannot be stopped.

The current political global scenario already signals this predicament, evident in today’s global situation.   Russia’s war on Ukraine has entered its fifth year, with no end in sight. In Gaza, Israel conducted what numerous human rights groups and scholars have described as a genocide, with the world watching. In Sudan, more than 13 million people have been displaced and hundreds of thousands killed. And just this year, the US and Israel have launched an illegal war that has killed more than 3,300 people while wreaking havoc on the global economy. Even western leaders are now publicly declaring that the rules-based world order, established after the horrors of the second world war, is dead.

In our everyday lives, we feel these crises on a more intimate level. Basic goods have become unaffordable for many. The housing crisis and the uncertain jobs market have robbed young people of a sense of hope about their future, without a roadmap for a good life.

Loneliness is growing.

Loneliness is not a personal failing; it is a sign of a ‘religion-less’ society – and it is typical today. Everyone is in search of community. Lonely, disconnected people try to find it online, perhaps, try to find it in people talking directly to them, believing simple narratives about who to blame for their pain: elites, or women with jobs, or Muslims, or Jews, or LGBTQ+ people, or immigrants on boats.

Times today remind me of the opening lines of “The Tale of Two Cities” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the age of Light, it was the age of Darkness.”

THE WORLD IS CHANGING.

Never ever have the contrasts been starker than today, that’s why that famous Dickens quote needs expanding:

“It was the age of heaven-heat, it was the age of heedless humans.”

Stay tuned.