Bert Hielema–Columns and Writings

June 9 2013

What moves me to write my Columns? (Part 3)

My and your Sacrilege has caused Climate Change.

Matthew 24, the first book of the New Testament, is an interesting chapter. The heading tells why: Signs of the End of the Age. If you don’t have a Bible, go to Google. Verse 14 says that before Jesus returns, the gospel of the Kingdom will go world-wide. The WWW is the perfect medium to do that, with the Internet the miraculous tool for making the Gospel of the Kingdom known everywhere as a prelude to Jesus’ return. The Kingdom refers to the brand-new earth to come: brand-new is the proper term because a cosmic conflagration will completely cleanse it.

The next verse gives an indication that we are at the beginning of the end. Verse 15 simply says: “So when you see standing in the holy place the abomination that causes desolation, let the reader understand.” The holy place is God’s creation, his holy direct word, the artistic expression of the Sovereign Creator. The Scriptures are God’s holy secondary word, compiled by humans under the direction of God’s Spirit.

My Greek dictionary tells me that the Greek word here translated as ‘abomination’ can also be rendered as ‘sacrilege’, which is more fitting in this context, as sacrilege is an offence against something holy – his creation. The annotation ‘let the reader understand’ means that this text can only be understood when this sacrilege is actually happening as is the case now, purely the result of your and my sin.

This rest of the chapter provides us with a few hints of what is in store for us in our last days: pretty frightening. Verse 39 gives a perfect example how the “Rapture” enthusiasts misread the Bible. It plainly says that God’s people stay put while the sinners are swept away, the direct opposite of what the Rapture crowd have been proclaiming. My distant relative Harold Egbert Camping should have known better than to pick a specific day for the Lord’s return because this chapter also clearly states that the day and hour cannot be predicted. The Day of the Lord is like a pregnancy: we know that the approximate time of birth – after about nine months – but we can’t pinpoint the day and hour.

My battle with the church

I have a constant battle with the church about what comprises God’s WORD. The church sees the Scriptures as the most important source of God’s greatness. When God’s Creation is equally seen as His Holy Word then a complete redirecting of life is called for. Then strictly speaking driving to church in a polluting car would be a sin, as well as heating or cooling a church auditorium: mega churches, mega sins. Perhaps that’s why Jesus said that “Where two or three are together there I will be”, making small beautiful. With Luther I affirm that “we must sin bravely” here. I believe that the Bible and Creation together constitute God’s Holy Word. A French saying comes to mind: A bon entendeur demi mot suffit, which means that for a good listener only half a word is enough. An understanding listener also hears (Romans 8: 22) the groaning of creation. When we listen to what the Bible says- one half of The Word – and also have compassion with creation – the other half of The Word, then we get the complete picture.

“Let the reader understand.” Those who do understand both Words are, naturally, feeling very fretful about life on a stressed-out planet, because life as we know it is almost over. Most people avoid mentioning ‘apocalypse’. That’s a normal human reaction: we are conditioned to ignore unpleasant experiences. Also secular society has a vested interest in us believing that infinite growth in a finite world is perfectly acceptable even though it is astonishingly absurd.

Should I once again point out that we are staring down multiple cascading ecological crises, struggling with political and economic institutions that are unable even to acknowledge, let alone cope with, the threats to the human family and the larger living world? Should I once again repeat that we are intensifying our assault on the ecosystems, undermining the ability of that living world to sustain a large-scale human presence into the future? Should I once again emphasize that when the entire world darkens, looking on the bright side is not a virtue but a sign of irrationality?

Romans 8: 22-23 tell us that our planet is in deep pain. The bible plainly points out that our world is in torment and that we too, if we have any feeling left, if we have any love for God’s word, must make that torment our own. If we really believe the Bible then anxiety and anguish are the logical reaction: they are not signs of weakness but evidence of Christian courage. A deep grief over what we are losing—and have already lost – is needed. Jesus, when he saw that his friend Lazarus was dead “He wept” even though he knew that a few minutes later his friend would walk out of the grave alive and well. It is only fitting that we too cry our heart out. Weeping for the dying state of creation is a prerequisite for entering the new one. No crown – no entrance into the New Creation – without a cross, without groaning with creation subjected to such torture. After that, says Roman 8, “we eagerly anticipate becoming part of the New Creation.” Jesus wept. We must follow his example of weeping for a dying planet. Instead of repressing our emotions we must confront them, especially collectively, as church, as the Body of Believers. That’s why I suggested a Day of Repentance. Failing to do so is lining up with the world in false optimism.

The world is desperate

I find it fascinating how the likes of Bernanke and Carney, to name two major financials players, desperately try to rescue the system: they fail to see that the financial world is inseparable from the total which involves groundwater depletion, topsoil loss, chemical contamination, increased toxicity in our own bodies, the number and size of “dead zones” in the oceans, accelerating extinction of species, and reduction of biodiversity, just to name a few symptoms. The real question is: Where are the answers? The simple answer is that there are no answers because there are no solutions to our problems if we insist on maintaining the high-energy/high-technology structure of the industrialized world.

You better get used to it: we do live in end-times. The Bible tells us so. Jesus loves us so much that he will teach us all a lesson: in order to drill into us some common sense he will let the human race go ahead to destroy the world. Then, once this is almost done he will re-appear and straighten matters out.

That’s what I believe and here is how I picture it to play out. Let me be clear: it is not going to be a picnic. Never in human history have potential catastrophes been so global; never have social and ecological crises of this scale threatened at the same time; never have we had so much information about the threats we must come to terms with. Don’t expect the people in power to issue official warnings. Politicians will always protect their own privileged position, and capital will always continue to maximize profits and most people will always act as if times are normal. That’s why Jesus mentions that his re-appearance will be like ‘a thief in the night,’ that’s why in Revelation 18: 11 we read that the merchants will weep because they are stuck with their Gucci purses and Rolex watches and luxury cars. Never think that the Bible is not relevant.

An old man dreams dreams

Let me do a bit of dreaming about how and when our world will come crashing down. I was praying for wisdom in this matter and the Lord directed me to Revelation 11: 2. There it says that “they will trample on the holy city for 42 months,” the holy city being our world, of course. Revelation 13: 5 elaborates: “The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise authority for 42 months.”
Satan, God’s great Adversary, is the beast whose aim has been from the beginning – starting in Eden – to destroy God’s beloved cosmos. (John 3: 16).
The timespan of 42 months is 3.5 years, exactly half of that perfect number ‘7’. Matthew 24: 21-22 says that “For there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now – and never to be equaled again. If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect, those days will be shortened,” so, not 7 years of agony but half that number.
Here is a riddle that illustrates the nature of exponential growth. A lily pond contains a single leaf. Each day the number of leaves doubles – two leaves the second day, four the third, eight the four, and so on. “If the pond is full on the thirtieth day,” the question goes, “at what point is it half full?” Answer: “On the twenty-ninth day.” There you have the Three years and Six months, rather than the full Seven years: it could quite well be that the Lord will appear at your doorstep and knock: are you ready for my return? And will you say “Hey Lord, wait a minute, the glass is still half-full.” No wonder the Bible mentions the “like a thief in the night”.

You probably have never heard of Primary Productivity which is the present net primary production in terrestrial ecosystems being co-opted by human beings each year. In plain words: the total percentage we mortals exploit of the earth’s treasures for our exclusive benefit. In 1980 two efforts were made to calculate Primary Productivity, one by a group at Stanford University, the other by biologist Stuart L. Pimm, professor of biology at Duke University in Durham N.C. They both concluded that we consume about 40 percent of Earth Primary Productivity: 40 percent of soil, water, air. In other words we humans have claimed for our greedy use at least 40 percent of all land, water and air, depriving all other creatures of their rightful share, which explains why the current extinction rate is 1,000 times higher than which existed before human domination of the planet. Jeffrey Bolster in his book The Mortal Sea shows that every year we withdraw from the seas 160 million tons of fish but deposit there 7 million tons of garbage. Poisonous chemicals in the Gulf of Mexico have formed a pool of dead water equivalent in size to the state of New Jersey; among the several hundred dead zones elsewhere in the world, one encircles the Chinese coastline. You get the idea. We use up so much oil that we have come to a point where we no longer eat food but oil as it takes at least 10 calories of oil to produce one food calorie. Primary Productivity now stands between 40 and 50, meaning that almost half of the world’s basic energy, vested in plants, trees, animals, is being used for our benefit in such a way that once it is consumed, it cannot be restored. Depleted oceans, soil degradation, disappeared species, cannot be re-created by human technology.
Due to the scramble for more oil to keep our economic system lubricated, and also the increasing pace of Global Warming, environmental destruction is greatly accelerating, rapidly approaching the 50 percent mark, the tipping point, which is the half- way to total chaos, just as 3.5 years is halfway to 7, the number of fullness.
I believe that the Lord in his grace will not return on Day 30, but Day 29, when, seemingly, the glass is still half full. Then the trumpet will sound and, all will be changed, in a flash, in the twinkling of the eye.

It is with that in mind that I write my columns. Click on ‘home’ to see previous columns.

I will skip a week. Next weekend is our 60^th wedding anniversary. We will celebrate it in style with family and friends. There is a lot to celebrate: five children, all in wonderful marriages; 13 grandchildren, all well-adjusted and successful.

We started our marriage a bit hesitantly. We were married in First Christian Reformed Church in Hamilton on June 17 1953. We both were quite new to the country and the language. When Rev. T.C. van Kooten, with his American accent, married us, we had no prior rehearsal, so the old-fashioned form sounded quite incomprehensible. I did not know whether I should say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the questions, so I whispered ‘no’ and my wife did the same. That’s how our married life started. Sixty years later it has been a resounding ‘yes’.

June 2 2013

What moves me to write my columns? (part 2)

Since I cannot buy all the new books that booksellers have trouble selling, I read a lot of reviews just in case there’s one that will entice me to hand over my credit card and add one more volume to my already overflowing library. In the Globe and Mail of May 25 I read about a possible acquisition: Scatter, Adapt and Remember: How humans will survive a Mass Extinction. She – Annalee Newitz, a San Francisco-based science journalist – believes that a mass extinction is inevitable and considers moving to another planet –“we need a long-term plan to get humanity off Earth “. She also writes: “My point is that regardless whether humans are responsible for the sixth mass extinction on Earth, it is going to happen.” Writes the reviewer “The real solution to climate change is not terraforming the moons of Saturn or turning the skies white with miniscule mirrors. The real solution to climate change is both blindingly obvious and currently, politically impossible: an immediate and complete transition away from a carbon economy.” He concludes: “we rather live in fantasy than begin the difficult work of saving ourselves from ourselves.”

No, not a book I’d buy.

What is becoming increasingly clear is that we are carboholics. Just as alcoholics create a lot of problems for themselves and their families, carboholics cause truly frightening fallacies for everybody: groundwater depletion, topsoil loss, chemical contamination, increased toxicity in our own bodies, plenty of “dead zones” in the oceans, accelerating extinction of species and reduction of bio-diversity. Did I mention climate change? It is becoming more obvious every day that our lifestyle leads to a dead end, also financially as in an oil-based world the cheap and easily accessible crude is quickly disappearing. That’s why we are employing ever more dangerous and destructive technologies such as hydro-fracturing, deep-water drilling, mountain-top removal, and tar sands extraction to get at the remaining hydrocarbons. No wonder the voices are becoming louder and louder: we are approaching the end of life as we know it: mass extinction.

We more and more hear talk about tipping points and planetary boundaries, about how human activity is pushing the planet beyond its limits. Recently 22 top scientists in the prestigious journal Nature warned that humans likely are forcing a planetary-scale critical transition “with the potential to transform Earth rapidly and irreversibly into a state unknown in human experience.” That means that “the biological resources we take for granted at present may be subject to rapid and unpredictable transformations within a few human generations.”

We are in real trouble. Living in the country-side as I do might stave off the worst for a few weeks, but there is no long-term escape from the dislocations that will come with such changes. Money and power might insulate some from the most wrenching consequences of these shifts, but there is no permanent escape for anybody. We do not live in stable societies and no longer live on a stable planet. We may feel safe and secure in specific places at specific times, but it’s hard to believe in any safety and security in a collective sense.

In short, we live in apocalyptic times.

Apocalypse

The heading of this column, of the previous one and of my next June 9 column is, was and will be: What moves me to write my columns?

I know that I have been very critical of church and society. I had one person cancel my column for that reason. Yes, I am controversial. Sorry. Not really. I am convinced that from here on in matters will only get worse. The Book of Revelation, also known as The Apocalypse of John, the final book of the New Testament gives some indications of what is in store for us. Given the situation today and the potential for enormous disasters, the scenes depicted in that Bible book look all too real. Both terms ‘Revelation’ and ‘Apocalypse’ are synonymous in their original meaning; “Revelation” from the Latin ‘revelo= unveil, uncover, lay bare’ and “Apocalypse” from Greek also meaning a lifting of the veil, a disclosure of something hidden from most people, a coming to clarity.

Revelation is all around us. There are too many signs to ignore. Thomas L. Friedman, columnist of the New York Times visited Syria a few weeks ago and relates how he met three men: two had 10 children, one had 16. There is no or little education opportunity for them as the schools are reduced to rubble. The water level is approaching zero; the soil totally depleted. With robots now doing the menial work, software eliminating much of the brainwork, the only future there is fighting and facing a glorious death. Welcome to a suicidal world.

In 1959 one of my clients was dying of lung cancer. Even in his last days, when he could not swallow food, he still smoked. Then and there I – then a pack a day man – vowed to quit smoking. I took up running and I still do that. We, citizens of the world, are that addicted person: we are unable to shake that carbon habit and it will kill us as surely as that middle-age man. To quit smoking is extremely hard. It took me a few months to completely rid myself of these cigarettes and for years I dreamed about it. The world will not even attempt to change: given our total dependence on carbon fuels it has become impossible, making demise a certainty.

That’s why we somewhere, somehow must start thinking apocalyptically, must acquire first and foremost a deepening of our understanding of the world, seeing through the falsehoods of the people in power. In our advertisement-soaked society, saturated incessantly with marketing ploys, it is difficult to see through the phoniness of it all and come to some sort of clarity about the nature of the evil forces at work in our day and age. That’s why an understanding of revelation is more crucial than ever.

Thinking apocalyptically, living ‘revelation’, will force us to squarely face the curses that come with the concentration of wealth and power and the inevitability of collapse. Imagining the future gives us the opportunity to gauge our role in these systems, and pray for forgiveness. Our prayers are heard when we ourselves change our thinking and actions. More about that next week. The Syria situation, referred to above, is just one small instance of the harshness of the human assault on God’s creation. Thomas Homer-Dixon has discovered that pollution of the earth also results in mind pollution. No wonder we and the earth are one. Increasingly we see that suffering and strife within the human race points to apocalyptic thinking – revealing the true human mind- as the only explanation of what is happening in the world and to those who live there. We increasingly are discovering that people are bad, that systems are failing and that the status quo can easily tip into chaos. Thinking apocalyptically, realizing that mass extinction is on the horizon, is a step in the right direction and will give us no answers but will help us to identify new directions. The shift from the prophetic to the apocalyptic can tell us that hope in the effectiveness of existing systems is futile and we must start thinking in dramatically new ways. By thinking of ‘Apocalypse’ as the end of the old we can start the beginning of something new. The word ‘metanoia’ (the Greek word for ‘conversion’ actually taking a totally different direction) comes to mind. It’s not ‘rapture’ but a ‘rupture’ drastic enough to change life.

Additional Apocalyptic Affirmation

Mass extinction is the topic du jour. The May 23d issue of the London Review of Books deals with three books relevant to the matter at hand: (1) The Carbon Crunch: How We’re getting Climate Change Wrong- and How to Fix it; (2) Earthmasters: the Dawn of the Age of Climate Engineering; and (3) The City and the Coming Climate: Climate Change in the Places we Live. The reviewer concludes: “We’ll muddle through……but only if we slow climate change to a rate that we can adapt to. If we don’t we may indeed be doomed.”

It is all but certain that ‘we are doomed,’ which requires apocalyptic anticipation.

Dr. Robert Jensen cites Fred Guterl, the executive editor of Scientific American, who wrote The Fate of the Specie. In it he does not shy away from a blunt discussion of the challenges humans face. He writes: “There’s no going back on our reliance on computers and high-tech medicine, agriculture, power generation, and so forth without causing vast human suffering—unless you want to contemplate reducing the world population by many billions of people. We have climbed out on a technological limb, and turning back is a disturbing option. We are dependent on our technology, yet our technology now presents the seeds of our own destruction. It’s a dilemma. I don’t pretend to have a way out. We should start by being aware of the problem.”

James Lovelock, a Fellow of the Royal Society, whose work led to the detection of the widespread presence CFCs in the atmosphere, is also quite forthright in his assessment. He is most famous for his “Gaia hypothesis” that understands both the living and non-living parts of the earth as a complex system that can be thought of as a single organism. In the foreword to The Revenge of Gaia, Earth’s Climate in Crisis and the Fate of Humanity, I read that “we are dangerously ignorant of our own ignorance.” He starts his book with a text (KJV) from Matthew 23:24 “Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.” A gnat is the smallest of insects. It makes me think how many people violently agitate against gay-marriage – affecting a fraction of 1 percent of the population –while 50 percent of Americans deny Climate Change – that will damage everybody’s wellbeing. A typical quote: “Our future is like that of the passengers of a small pleasure boat sailing quietly above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail.”

I write my columns to alert people to face reality. Most people will completely ignore it; others will ridicule it; some will admit that there is a case to be made and leave it at that. A few, a very few, will take it seriously.  What we are doing to the planet is lethal for all. To borrow from one of 20th century America’s most honest writers, James Baldwin, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

The Bible talks about The State of the World as well. Let me quote a passage from J. H. Bavinck’s book The Kingdom- Speed Its Coming soon to be published by Eerdmans.

“It needs no argument that this sundering of creational harmony has had the most ominous results. We can well imagine that the rupturing of the kingdom automatically entailed a host of disastrous consequences. “Cursed is the ground because of you” (Gen. 3:17). The apostle Paul elab­­o­rated on this when he wrote, “For the creation was subject to frus­tration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it” (Rom. 8:20). Indeed a curse came over the world when creation was sub­jected to damnation. Once sin affected just one portion of that beau­tifully holistic order, it infected its totality, ruined the entire realm. Now its melodious consonance is no longer a living reality. God himself sur­ren­dered his world to the powers of vanity, allowed it to be sub­ject to destruction. God himself took this fateful step because we, humans, we wanted to be kings, because we refused to live in a world, even in God’s marvelous Kingdom that wants to be subject to him alone.

“We are now faced with a development in creation that we cannot understand and control, but of which we daily exper­i­ence the terrifying consequences. We now see God’s work of art embroiled in the power of demons. Satanic forces have thrown themselves onto nature, onto us humans, onto the entire radiant creation.”

Yes, there is a solution to this. Yes, there is hope. Yes, all is well that ends well. More about that next week. In the meantime think apocalyptically, that is, look into your own mind, turn yourself inside out, try to discover where your real commitment lies.

Next week Part 3 “What moves me to write my columns?

Click on ‘home’ to view previous columns.

May 19 2013

What do I see out there in our wide-wild- world?

It’s so easy to leisurely float along on the current of contemporary news coverage. Bangladesh too far away – poor people- but hockey is more exciting. Syria? After a two year stalemate, nobody takes Syria seriously anymore: too bad those Christians there. Oh yes, Greece and Spain: a real pain for the young people with sixty percent having no work, but we are OK so it really does not touch us. Some rumblings about a dangerous disease in China: chickens again, but there’s always something wrong there, so what else is new – suppressing a yawn.

Why worry. Should we be concerned that the New York Times, not just any paper, has a lead editorial on a possible pandemic, having started in Saudi Arabia, and warning us not to be complacent?  Probably another alarm story that will pan out as bogus, so why worry.

God’s Word Today.

Among my readers – 5500 visitors in April – are a number of church-going people who recognize a Jesus’ quote: “like a thief in the night”. Also not foreign to them is “Woe! Woe, O great city, where all who became rich have hidden bank account overseas. Let the poor pay taxes. In one hour they have been brought to ruin!” Yes, that is a variation on a quote from Revelation 18. “Your multi-national companies were the leading forces behind the evil inflicted on the earth. By their magic spell all the nations were led astray.” That’s another quote, sort of, from that same Bible chapter. How about the Old Testament? Hosea anyone? Chapter 4? Because of what we do and keep on doing “the land mourns, and all who live in it waste away; the beasts of the field and the birds of the air and the fish of the sea are dying.”  And a few texts further: “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge, because you have rejected knowledge.”

Enough. Enough. What’s the use of citing all this? What’s the use of quoting the Holy Bible, God’s secondary Word, if only a relatively few really care about God’s primary world, his Holy Creation? I know that’s strong language, yet… I once sat down in a discussion group with the head of a denomination where the future of the church was the topic. I remarked that we call the Scriptures Holy even though its final version was determined by majority vote at the Council of Nicaea in 323 after much wrangling among the 300 people there. Creation however, called into being by God’s direct action- word is never called ‘holy’ by the church. Why not? My question was met with stony silence. It seems to me that failing to consider this option has brought the world to the edge of collapse. Don’t get me wrong. I love the Scriptures. For 27 years I have written a daily meditation on the weekly lectionary: 400 words on weekdays and 800 on Sundays, guided by a journal Journeying through the days. I  have never missed one single day. I still insist that the church has failed to show the way to the Kingdom. The result is the type of Stephen Harper Christianity.

A few words on Canada’s PM Stephen Harper

I believe the church is in a mess because it shies away from the totality of God’s Word, which includes creation. Psalm 19 comes to mind. And it is not alone in committing sins of omission: the entire political world too is suffering from gigantic missteps. Canada itself is going in the wrong direction, thanks to its Prime Minister, Stephen Harper who confesses to be a protestant Christian of the ‘heaven-minded’ type. He has only one passion – apart from hockey: the economy: everything has to be subservient to economic growth. Take the tar sands, called ‘ethical’ by his administration even though they generate multiple pollution by: (1) removing the trees that cover the bitumen, eliminating a source of carbon absorption; (2) creating extra carbon as dead trees release CO2; (3) cooking or boiling the sands to extract the oil is tremendously energy intensive; (4) generating mountains of petroleum coke which according to the environmental group Oil Change International is “really the dirtiest residue from the dirtiest oil on earth”; (5)  burning the stuff in our gas tanks and so spreading pollution everywhere; (6) the transportation by pipelines and possible spills on the way to refineries; and (7) the refining process itself. Thus there are at least seven sources of pollution involved in the tar sand process. If that is ethical then I guess bad-mouthing opposition politicians is the Christian way to win elections.

No wonder that over the past few years Mr. Harper has engaged in a typical anti-science campaign, muzzling scientists who have criticized his views on Climate Change. Just lately the National Research Council has been ordered to engage in research that has only economic gain, claiming that scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value. Planning for Global Warming has no commercial value. Fighting poverty has no commercial value. Engaging in searching for suicide prevention among the native population has no commercial value. Any research on the decline of the bird and amphibian species has no commercial value. Testing the waters for possible contamination has no commercial value. Mr. Harper believes in being Homo Economicus, the one-goal human, created for a single purpose only: to go after money, to impose upon the earth for pure exploitable purposes. In Genesis 2: 9 it is related how God made trees: “pleasing to the eye and good for food.”  The aesthetic is named before the economic feature. With God beauty and art, music and song, play and pleasure, genuine human emotions, always come before the monetary factor. Jesus despised money, knowing that he would be sold for thirty pieces of silver. Paul calls the lust for money – oil – the root of all evil. When God’s opponent approached the human pair in paradise, as related in Genesis 3: 6, the order is reversed: “the fruit of the tree was good for food – economics having priority – and pleasing to the eye – beauty being secondary.” Here Satan’s influence is at work, exactly in line with Stephen Harper’s reasoning. Frankly a Christian politician is a contradiction in terms.

This past week Harper was on a mission trip to the USA: selling ethics, in the form of ‘ethical oil”. Ethical oil is equivalent to ‘clean coal’ and just as much a euphemism as ‘sustainable growth.’ All this happened in a week when the magic number of 400 was reached in the carbon dioxide account that measure Green House Gases in the atmosphere, which used to be in ‘normal’ time, before the “Age of Abundance”, 280 part per million. The higher account guarantees that much more weather trouble is certain.

What do I see out there in the wide-wild-world?

This past week I read comments from two people whose insight I value. One was by Niall Ferguson- Harvard History professor – who recently remarked that, “[Europe] is a political experiment gone wrong. The experiment was to see if Europeans could be forced into an even closer union – despite their wishes – by economic means, because the political means failed.”

Some politicians there had a grandiose idea: to prevent such terrible events as the two World Wars – 1914-1918 and 1939–1945, actually one long-long war with an armistice of some 20 years – they set out to create a United States of Europe, with the United States of America as a blueprint. They forgot that America has one language while Europe has 23 different tongues, necessitating 23 interpreters retelling every sentence uttered wherever these nations meet. And language is not the only obstacle: eating habits, family structures, working ethos, savings patterns, you name it, all are different from one continental nation to another. One Europe: one big mess. Just imagine having Canada with not one Quebec but 22 of them, all different languages and traditions and histories. As a commercial appraiser in my working life, I often had to deal with asset distribution between two estranged spouses. Nothing is more vicious than love – passion perhaps – gone sour. When – not if – Europe breaks up, expect the world to feel the terrible after effects.

A similar warning came from Seier Christensen, co-CEO and co-founder of Saxo Bank. He told an audience at the Saxo #FXDebates in London that the Eurozone will eventually break up as Brussels claims even more power from nation states. He warned investors that Cyprus showed that nobody’s bank deposits were safe, as wealth could simply be taken from the accounts, disguised as solidarity payments to pay for the country’s debt. His words: “the governments of Europe need money, and the private sector has it. It is as simple as that. Be very paranoid.”

He warned investors that the mattress may be a safer place to deposit money than their bank accounts. Frankly, it is a complete mess. And it is a mess that gets worse and worse every day, anyone with a rational view of the world now sees the currency collaboration as a historic failure that can lead to even further fatal consequences for Europe and the continent’s competitiveness vis-à-vis the rest of the world.”

A possible new scenario

The current world-wide recession has created something new: no longer Peak Oil, but Peak Demand and Peak Debt.

In the 19^th Century the West got the upper hand in the whole wide world by harnessing coal to its machinery, and later cheap oil. Now there is something new brewing: what we have today is not a lack of oil, but the inability of us in the West to compete in a global economy based on all kinds of types of energy, starting with cheap coal, now China’s secret and most dirty weapon. It used to be that cheap energy would foster a higher standard of living. Then the Oil Shock came in the 1970s which also gave the start to climate awareness – at least for me. Now we see something new: oil companies having used up all the cheap oil, must charge high prices to pay for the extra costs. But in a world economy suffering a depression, oil use is down, so oil companies are starting to fix prices, because the new situation is one of declining oil and energy prices to levels too low for the 20 to 30 major oil exporting nations and major energy corporations. They need high prices to warrant exploration and finance the high living standard in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Middle East, and everywhere governments subsidize the standard of living thanks to high oil revenue.

Oil prices that are too high give importing nations headaches, while oil prices that are too low upset the budgets of the oil producing nations including Canada and its provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

We are in an entirely new situation. In spite of trillions being pumped into the economy in an effort to generate inflation, deflation is looming. Cheap oil spells big-time trouble. Tar sand oil needs close to $80 per barrel to be profitable. Harper wants to sell the stuff in the USA, but the USA doesn’t need more oil: fracking, more renewables and the continuing and worsening recession have driven down the need for oil. The Middle East needs $100 oil to keep its people happy. Russia is in the same position. Cheap oil is a calamity for all. But it looks now that’s what is coming. Also everybody has debt, and debt can only be paid when oil is pricey. A return to cheap oil spells doom, resulting in Alberta going broke, resulting in Saudi Arabians going back on the bike or rather the camel, not very comfortable when being used to air-conditioned Rolls Royces. Also both the USA and Canada can easily manage on a lot less oil. Europe lives well at less than half the USA consumption and we are slowly adopting a European life style thanks to Hybrid cars, more renewables and especially a slowdown in the economies.

What do I see out there in the wide-wild-world? China will continue to manage with its cheap labour and ever- more dirty coal, stealing jobs and progress in the West. We need economic growth to save the system and high oil prices to keep the world happy. With continued less economic activity, less oil being used, the picture of Peak Oil is fading. Oil production peaked in or near 2005 and has fallen since, and so has demand. But all those in the international oil business are still banking on $100+ oil. That’s why Harper was in the USA this past week, selling expensive and extremely dirty oil for which there may not be a market. Companies have invested billions to produce this oil and have gone deep into debt to finance it. The entire oil world needs expensive oil. If the price goes down, so does the entire financial world.

Next week: why do I write these blogs anyway?

In last week’s column I promised to provide some readings and other aids for a worshipful approach to a service aimed at a greater awareness to the climate catastrophe that awaits us.

Thus this week’s blog comes in two sections.

May 12 2013

Suggested readings: portions of Isaiah 24, Matthew 24 Romans 8,  Revelation 21-22

Responsive reading

FORGIVE US AND TEACH US

All:           With the whole creation we wait for the purifying fire of judgement

Leader:      In our arrogance and pride

we have grabbed what was not ours

and abused what was entrusted to us

only for safekeeping.

All:

We have taken your name and dishonoured it

We have flouted your fixed order and

In willful defiance and deliberate ignorance

Have shut our ears to the pleading of your people

And the groaning of your creation.

Leader:      Forgive us for breaking your covenant

For enslaving the poor of the earth and

Unloading on them our paper moneys created

Out of nothing by our banking magic and now demanding

Their blood.

All:

Forgive us for breaking your covenant.

We have paved our planet with our greed for speed

And our need to escape from ourselves

And now we have upset the laws of creation

At our own peril.

Leader:

Forgive us for breaking your covenant.

We have done business to enrich ourselves

At the expense of creatures and creation and now

Have imprisoned our souls and imperiled the cosmos.

All:

Teach us to live again,

To live the true life of joy and peace

Of loving you as you want to be loved

Of loving others and ourselves as you want us to.

Leader:

Teach us to live the true life of joy and peace and justice

As your covenant children

A life of obedience

Of truly responding to your word

Your laws in creation, your word in Jesus Christ and

Your spirit in us.

All:

So that we can prepare ourselves to live

The full life of your new creation

When we have become what we are

When we will see you as you really are

When all our hurts are healed

When all our wars are ended

When all church walls are gone

When the Bible be no more, your word be in our hearts,

When everything in earth and in the starry expanse

Will be made new

When justice will reign and each eye will see at last

That this world belongs to God.

LET THE EARTH HEAR OUR VOICE

Tune: To God be the Glory.

Our soil is in trouble, our waters unclean.

The air we are breathing – the smog can be seen-

has slowly been poisoned, with storms often mean.

Where then are we going? Where then have we been?

Refrain:

Shout it out, shout it out: Let the earth hear our voice

Shout it out, shout it out, let the trees too rejoice.

O come, love creation, the Scriptures, God’s Son

And give them the glory, great things he has done.

Our lungs we corrupt, our bodies we stone,

Our highways are death ways, our morals far gone,

TV is most nonsense: we reap what we’ve sown.

To combat this trend: what have we all done?

Refrain:

Economy now has been changed to consume.

With spending we want to create a new boom

which only will lead to create a new tomb,

And we, the world’s Christians, we’ve hastened this doom.

Refrain;

We reasoned that God has redeemed just our soul

Just church work was holy, just heaven our goal

while secular world not worthy our dole

All this is now taking a serious toll.

Refrain:

The main cause why we the world’s Christians so erred

The Scriptures alone we regarded God’s word,

To honour God’s earth has an equal reward

God’s word is the Scriptures, Creation, the Lord.

Refrain:

Shout it out, shout it out: Let the earth hear our voice

Shout it out, shout it out, let the trees too rejoice.

O come, love creation, the Scriptures, God’s Son

And give them the glory, great things he has done.

I admit it is not great poetry or great prose. However, it carries a message, and with a bit of effort and patience it is even fit for communal singing. So give it a try.

This week’s blog comes in two sections.

May 12 2013-2

EAT FOOD. NOT TOO MUCH. MOSTLY PLANTS.

That’s how Michael Pollan starts his book An Eater’s Manifesto. This past week I was seeding beets and carrots, drilling holes in the soft soil for potatoes and planting onion sets galore. While doing that it went through my mind what a blessed work this is: burying life to create life. What a privilege to have a parcel of land that every year is further enriched with compost.

My wife and I have been vegetarians for the last 35 years. If you hear about food poisoning, it usually involves meat. Also cows are an enormous source of methane pollution, a major contributor to Climate Change. Pollan adds: “eating a little meat isn’t going to kill you, though it is better approached as a side dish than a main. “ His advice is to eat plants and avoid food stuff that is made in plants. He relates how political pressures from cattle-rich states have prevented governments to enact dietary measures limiting the consumption of red meat which causes both heart attacks and cancers. We’ve heard it often: to live longer, eat little or no meat and consume a lot of fruit and vegetables, and if you can grow your own produce: more power to you.

Jesus taught us to pray for our food. Praying for a meal today is needed more than ever, because much of what is offered in the stores is not prepared for health but for taste, catering to our cravings for salt, sugar and fat. I once took a group of high-school students on a week-long canoe trip where all food was health-food. Midweek our portage was close to a convenience store and sugar-deprived teenagers loaded up on the sweet stuff.

This past week I employed myself as a manual labourer in my own garden. Last year I bought an electric rototiller, powered by my solar panels. I now have all my power tools converted to electricity so that I can use my solar power for them: mower, chainsaw, trimmer: even an electric snow blower. Even if you don’t have solar power, and are in need of a new mower, please go electric: the gas-fired machines are highly polluting and noisy.

Working the vegetable garden is a spiritual act

Before I had my rototiller I double dug my entire garden, digging trenches, filling them with compost and so going through my entire 2000 square feet vegetable patch, creating 8 -50 feet long raised beds with a small path between them. The electric tool is a concession to my age. I now spread the compost on the surface and cover it with the soil of the trenches between the beds which I still dig by hand.

I see my entire garden exercise as an act of holiness: it is to me equivalent to going to church – which I also do; this is more a private act of worship. Creating home grown stuff is a triple pleasure: the pleasure of preparing the soil and planting the seeds, the pleasure of eating a healthier product, and, of course, our climate benefits with no transportation and packing expense.

We, in the 21^st Century, have it a lot easier than the primitive people, those who lived before agriculture became established and fire was discovered. The earliest humans were hunter-gatherers who never knew exactly where their next food might be coming from. In fact, their “meals” were probably eaten on the run as they stalked enough prey to furnish sufficient food, but it is unlikely that their meals were regular or even eaten daily. Given the conditions under which they secured food, it was impossible for them to take any of it for granted. Every morsel was hard-won and therefore, exceedingly precious. I am sure they prayed to their gods for guidance and safety, just as Abel and Cain sacrificed of their fruits to Yahweh. We now have become so dependent on commercial foods carried over thousands of miles that, in case of an energy breakdown or a computer failure, within a week millions would starve. Certainly the so-called poor in Africa and Asia would then be much better off.

Whether living in a small agricultural village along the Nile River in ancient times or growing food in one’s backyard garden in the twenty-first century, small-scale agriculture is labour-intensive, and appreciation for food is in direct proportion to the energy expended in growing it. Slowly there is an awareness that we must eat closer to home. Perhaps not the 100 feet diet I try to implement, but at least a 100 mile diet. I am thrilled to see that one grandson, just graduated with a liberal arts degree from Trent, let his regular well-paying summer landscaping job go in order to work on an organic market gardening outfit, at a highly reduced wage, to learn earth-friendly ways to grow food, using horses as well. Another grandson is going to a carbon neutral small college to study agriculture somewhere in Western Minnesota.

Ora et Labora – pray and work

Jesus taught us to pray for food. I too pray for the fruit of the soil, for the apple trees on our property- I have bought another apple tree, this time an Empire, in addition to the three different kind I have: a Northern spy,  which gave me exactly three apples last year, an early soft apple which makes delicious applesauce, and a Spartan. In a good year these trees supply us with sufficient fruit for the year. There are also lots of wild apple trees in our vicinity: I know exactly where the best apples are that nobody goes after, except the deer and the bears. But I can reach higher.

Throughout human history, particularly in indigenous cultures, food has been perceived as sacred. All food is sacred in the sense that the life of a plant or animal has been sacrificed to feed another being. The word ‘sacrifice’ means ‘made holy.’ Our lives are sacred because Jesus sacrificed himself for our sake, for all of humanity, and for the entire cosmos, sanctifying everything.

The more energy expended, the less food sacredness

With ever greater numbers moving from the land to cities, food has lost its sacred status. It has become an industrial product. It is no longer holy, replaced as it is with artificial, synthetic, and technologically-produced forms of food. All sorts of chemicals are added to make produce look fresh and green and keep meat from spoiling. No wonder even newborn babies have scores of harmful chemicals in their tender bodies. It now takes an average of ten energy calories to obtain one single food calorie: the sacredness of food is decreased in proportion to the energy expended to obtain it.

We must recover the holiness in all of life and the easiest way to do that is to start with food. Grow it wherever possible or make meals from scratch where this cannot be done. Eat simple. When we see eating as a form of spirituality, see it as an attempt to be in harmony with the unseen order of things, then our perspective on life changes as well. I believe Jesus saw it that way when he gave thanks for meals, something still a practice in our extended family.

Eating less prolongs life. My wife and I have two sit-down formal meals: breakfast – mostly oat porridge on which I use our own maple syrup and add wild blueberries, lecithin and ground-up flaxseed. Our morning meal start with the reading of a Psalm or a portion thereof- Psalm 119 with 176 verses we split up in segments of about 10 verses – and a prayer. Our ‘warm’ meal is mostly home grown and always made from scratch. Two or three 3 times per week we have just a big salad with field greens, onion, garlic, beets, carrots, tomatoes with lemon juice and olive oil, together with feta cheese, an egg and beans. Three times a week potatoes with a meal from the freezer: green beans, apple sauce, kale, red cabbage, broccoli, sauerkraut.  In the evening we have next to nothing: a slice of home-made bread or a bowl of yogurt.

What is the Kingdom?

All my life I have been greatly influenced by a Dutch book which I translated a few months ago. The final product I sent to Eerdmans in Grand Rapids, Mich. a 100 year old publisher, which has published one of my previous books. Just last week Eerdmans sent me a sizeable advance. The Kingdom- Speed Its Coming has some wonderful passages in it. Here is one, referring to the Kingdom to Come, the New Creation, on the threshold of unfolding:

“In the first place we must realize that God’s Kingdom has a cosmic character, which means that it comprises the entire world as we have come to know it. Not only are we humans part of that Kingdom, but it also includes the worlds of animals and plants. Yes, even the angels are part of this wider context: they too have a place in the harmonious totality of God’s Kingdom.

“This implies that all parts of the world are attuned to each other. Nowhere is there a false note, a dis­so­nant that disturbs the unity, as everything fits harmoniously into the greater scheme of the totality. This applies both to each individual specimen but equally to the various circles or spheres found in creation. The celestial bodies follow their orderly tra­jectories and do so according to God’s royal will, obeying his voice. And so the stars in their courses sound a melodious note in the great concert in which all creatures participate. The mountains rise up high above the water-saturated earth, their proud summits piercing the clouds; yet even these mountains are nothing but servants of Him who has planted and secured them by his power. On every page the Bible makes plain that the meaning of creation resides only in the one overarching motif: the motif of God’s Kingdom. That is why Scripture and Creation are never at odds: they always form a unity where the one reinforces the other.”

With J. H. Bavinck, the original author, I believe that all of life is a unity. Through a return to sustainable agriculture and in the very act of growing our own food, some aspect of our human existence pays homage to the earth, holds it sacred, and praises God in gratitude for and resonance with the elements of the soil from which we originate. An important part of being a Christian is to display a renewed reverence for the earth, a heightened appreciation for nutrition and the health benefits of organic food. Often this will also deepen our connection with our (church) families and larger communities as we share and exchange produce.

Sacred versus profane

Life is a unity. The opposite of the sacred, of course, is the profane. Much of the food we see in stores is mindlessly-manufactured and technologically-tortured. No wonder so many people display unhealthy bodies, grossly misshaped due to faulty nutrition. Not they, but the system is to blame, because these so-called foods constitute satanic substances which are unfit to be ingested in human bodies. The more deeply immersed we are in the sanctity of food and its origins, the more we are likely to be repelled by processed, genetically modified, and chemically-laden foods that have been produced by way of massive resource and ecological destruction, and which deliver more of the same to our minds and bodies. The ancient saying Mens Sana in Corpore Sano – a healthy mind in a healthy body-  also makes the opposite true: a poisoned body breeds an insane mind

When I worked in my garden these past weeks, and as I keep busy in the coming months weeding and watering and harvesting, my heart overflows with gratitude that so far each year the Lord has granted me the physical stamina and the willingness to be engaged in this spiritual exercise. Not often enough do we share our blessings with others. Part of the sanctity of eating is enjoying food with family and friends by cooking and eating meals together.

In many ways we are what we eat. The entire commercial world is conspiring to detract us from the sacred through television, through the way cities are built, and by destroying what is the sacred in life. We need a lot of prayer, a lot of grace, a lot of insight to escape this. Start simple: terminate television, refuse to be cowed by the corporations who control the food supply. Go back to basics and ‘live’.

Next week a new look at energy and debt. To view previous columns, click on ‘home’.