Author Archives: Guus

Strange, this God of the Bible

I don’t think what I am going to write here falls in the category ‘inspirational’, but I think it is very important to set some things right, as I think I have been writing quite some times about ‘God‘ in this site. As I kind of believed in this ‘God‘, this ‘God‘ from the Bible. And right now I don’t anymore, as I found many strange things related to this ‘God‘ that I mainly know from how I was brought up. And this ‘God‘ is still deeply ingrained in my thinking, so even though I don’t believe in this ‘God‘ anymore, it is still part of my being, of my thinking, next to that it of course kind of defines the Western culture, that I believe is mainly based on the ideas from the Christian Bible.

I think my first real understanding about what is behind the christian belief started by listening to talks of Bart Ehrman, especially when he explains what ‘horizontal reading’ of the four gospels in the New Testament reveals: that there are things that are undeniable wrong.

Raw Step 3 work

I was just working Step 3 and felt like sharing it here.

“Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.”

Step 3 questions and my answers on September 3, 2020

What does “made a decision” mean to me?Chirrut Imwe

Right now I am not sure. I still feel very worried with Iwa, I feel the urge to want to “do something”, now. But it doesn’t really make sense. I have been here before with her, and yes, sometimes I go to the vet. But today still doesn’t really feel good, although I am worried.

And actually I already decided to go tomorrow, not today. I have no clue why, but that is what I decided. I just can’t seem to accept that decision.

Chirrut ImweHow do I know when I need to let go? How do I let go?

I can’t let go of Iwa, of life, of everything. I just can’t let go. Maybe start with accepting that. Life seems so pointless. I was born, I live, and one day I will die. And it feels like everything will just be gone by then, everything will have just been a waste. But I know it isn’t.

What does “as we understood God” mean to me?

It means something that my old “God” doesn’t work for me. The Christian God resembling my father. It means I need to find Something Else to help me through the day. Or maybe make my life agreeable.

How can I make myself (more) happy today? What can I do to feel more happy? Today.

Am I ready to let go and let God have a hand in managing my life?

I guess I am, provided that God has not only good intentions, but really supports me. My dad had good intentions, but it didn’t work, it harmed me.

Ah, and I already know the intention of The Universe is not to harm me. And I know ‘reality’ is something weird I make up in my mind, even though it is there.

It just “is”.

And pain and such is to protect me, not to harm me.

So maybe go to the pain and ask (it) what it means, why it is there?

It says something like “something is wrong”. So maybe find out and see if I can do something about it.

So maybe just ask the question “What is wrong”.

What does “to the care of God” mean to me?

I am still trying to understand this one better. It is the positive part in this Step. It means God is caring (and not punishing). But I was punishing Arf, because I want no harm for him. Is that how God works? Is that how parents work?

What does “turning it over” mean to me?

Ah, this is maybe a good one, as I just decided to give Iwa the Broncure, after reading the label. And after I heard her cough again. Somehow I did turn that decision over.

Still hard not to be in control, as I don’t want to loose her. But one day I will loose her. And one day I will be gone myself.

Is this where I let go of results? How does letting go of results help us to work this Step better?

I know more and more I can’t control the world. But I also know I do have influence on results. Or do I?

So what is God? To me? Now? Today? I guess something like the force that makes everything work? But it is an ‘anonymous’ force. That force is not conscious. And it is not “God” as a Christian or Muslim God. But yeah, the last is a human invention.

So yeah, I believe right now, today, that consciousness is something emerging from, well, I don’t know what. Something like the theory from Lawrence Krauss. So there are only fields? Energy fields? Multiple fields?

Or only a single field?

So turning it over means something like “have The Universe have it’s way”. And I don’t mean that negative.

How can I be in touch with my Higher Power’s will for me? In what ways does my Higher Power speak to me?

Wow, interesting question, related to what I thought and wrote earlier. My Higher Power, The Universe, just speaks to me in energy, in waves, through fields, or through “The Field”. Or through “The Force” as per Star Wars?

Maybe that would be some Higher Power for me, thinking of something like “The Fields” or “The Field”. Connected through waves with everything that is.

And yes, that is how I believe right how is how the Universe works.

So what does that Higher Power, that Force, that Field, that “All That Is” want from me? Just to live I guess, just to experience. Enjoy. Enjoy everything, enjoy “Everything That Is”, enjoy “Everything That Has Been Manifested”. Or everything that is manifesting itself?

What does “my will and my life” mean to me?

Wow, this is going really deep today.

My will is something like I want everything “now”. I want the settlement done, I want Iwa to stay alive forever. I want Arf to stay alive forever. I still want a boyfriend or something, no, not a partner, a boyfriend now I guess. Much safer, as then I can be in control, just enjoy.

And “my life” I have no clue. Something like consciousness experiencing, well, life, experiencing what is happening in The Universe.

If I cannot trust myself, how can I trust my Higher Power? How do I practice trusting?

Well, I guess I didn’t create myself, so it would be very hard to trust myself. Trusting my Creator would be better I guess. But then again, who is my Creator? The Life Force I was talking about earlier? But that is not a conscious creator. And yes, while writing a non-conscious Creator can be trusted I guess. As it wouldn’t have any agenda. Something like what I always teach about dogs, about dogs only being mirrors to ourselves.

So how do I practice trusting? Well, I have no clue. Maybe indeed just something like “Letting go and Letting God”.

A lot of work

Me working on this pageI am working on my James Bond Torrent Page and I started to realize that a lot of things are just a lot of work. We are so used to having all kinds of things available to us in a relatively easy way that we often forget how much work and effort goes into a lot of things. Like it seems so easy to me how Mark Zuckerberg e.g. built Facebook and how Google, yes, who actually did it?, built Google. And yes, how I built this site e.g., and built many other sites.

And recently I felt a bit guilty towards a customer, as I have been spending quite a lot of time cleaning up (the code of) his site. The original developer couldn’t support him anymore with his site, so I offered to take over. And I thought I could relatively easy fix some things in that site, but the code has been written so bad that I constantly find myself cleaning up code instead of making required changes or building new functionality. So also there I forget how many hours are required to make some decent PHP/HTML, where decent means something like understandable for others and maintainable.

So no, Facebook didn’t come into being without an awful lot of effort from Mark Zuckerberg and his team. And Google didn’t come into being without the Google team. And indeed, also this website didn’t come into being without an awful lot of work, an awful lot of hours.

So let’s be a bit more grateful to the people supplying us with all kinds of things. And realize how much effort goes into even the simplest things, like also the food on our table and all the stuff we have around us.

So yes, many things are cheap and relatively easy to obtain, but that is only because so many of it is being made or so much is being used. As then the numbers count and (development) cost are spread over many people.

One breath at the time

Recently I have been listening a lot to YouTube movies from or about Jordan Peterson and I was amazed how he also mentioned the “One Day At The Time” principle, a principle I know from Twelve Step programs.

Breath, sky...

The principle says something like you can bear with anything, as long as you don’t look too far ahead, don’t look further than one day at the time. But the principle goes further, as in meetings I also heard people go back in time, in amount of time you can put up with something unbearable. It goes something like this:

iIf you can’t bear with something anyhow, you go one day at the time, you don’t look further than one day at the time, you don’t look further than today. However, sometimes can be so bad even one day is way too long to put up with it, so then you can just shorten the time, and say something like, “maybe I can bear with it half a day or so”, or if that is not enough, maybe I can bear with this for one hour.

However, sometimes even one hour can be too much, so then you can go back to one minute. And even one minute can be too much, so if that is the case you can go back to something like one second, or one breath at the time.

Breath, sky...

And amazingly, whenever I can’t put up with something, this seems to work. Often going back to “one day at the time” can be enough. But yes, sometimes, or even more often than I wanted, I had to go back to one second, one breath at the time.

As we can do one breath, can’t we? As no matter the circumstances, I learned I can cope with it, survive it, going ‘back in time’, going back to one breath at the time, if needed.

 

I want to thank one of my fellows in a Twelve Step Group for teaching me to go back to “One Breath At The Time” if needed. Yes, sharing your experience can help, no matter how bad the story, as her story must have been very bad, needing to go back to one breath at the time.

 

Doing today better than yesterday (or tomorrow better than today)

Jordan PetersonLately I have been listening quite a lot to talks and interviews from and with Jordan Peterson. And lately I have been pretty desperate about what to do next, as I don’t really have goals anymore it seems. And one of the things Jordan Peterson teaches is to set a goal, some goal, some life goal. And I don’t have anymore it seems. Yes, I wanted a lot, as I am very ambitious, but then life happened and life has hit me pretty hard in my experience. So I kind of gave up on some things, including life goals. And I changed a lot, a lot in a direction I don’t like, especially related to love life. As until like half a yea ago or so to me I wanted sex to be related to love, to relationship, to things like that. But recently it seems I am mainly looking for sex, not for love anymore, even though I somehow try to stay faithful to someone. But the last doesn’t feel good and another thing Jordan Peterson is teaching is to be truthful. Ah, and I used to be truthful and some kind of good guy, but also that got lost in the way how my life turned out.

So then, why write this post? Well, it seems one thing Jordan Peterson is teaching has been making sens for a few days now: make sure or try to make today better than yesterday. Or try to make tomorrow better than today, no matter in what small increment, even one percent or even a part of a percent would do, as per his teaching. So somehow I picked up on that and somehow that seems to work, at least for one or two days now. And I don’t fully know how I did it, but somehow I picked something up from what Jordan Peterson is teaching. Arf's paw healingAs for a few weeks already my dog Arf has a very nasty wound, a very nasty infection on his paw, on his toe. And no matter how much I did my best to treat it and prevent him from licking it open, until yesterday he was able to lick it open again and again, even after one or a few days of healing. But yesterday I kind of decided to just make Arf, make (the healing of) his wound my priority. So I did. And I kind of decided I wanted to do better today than yesterday. Or make tomorrow better than today, no matter in what small amount.

And amazingly, somehow it seems to have worked, as today his wound seems to have started to close and it seems I was able to somehow control his licking. Or he just realized I was dead serious on dealing with this issue, so he was less likely to lick.

The RecruitAnd what made me start writing was watching the end of the movie The Recruit. I never realized before how the movie really ended and today I saw some more intriguing details in the end. One of the things that struck me today that the character James Clayton doesn’t want the character Walter Burke to die, no matter what had happened. And yes, I guess we can  mostly or always understand people or movie characters, even if they do wrong, and yes, I guess we don’t want people to die, no matter what they did wrong, although there may be some exceptions to that. Ah and strange to see that today is the birthday of Al Pacino, the actor who plays the role of Walter Burke.

And no, I am not Jordan Peterson. I am not that conscientious, finishing a text fully, checking a text fully, until it cannot be improved further. I just post, so this is just it for now, even though of course I would like to improve this post and many other posts and pages in this site. But it seems just not to be me to do that, at least not now.

But today was better than yesterday for me, in many aspects, and it feels like more than one percent, maybe even ten percent. As I also did some cleaning up, no matter how little.