dear folks…
I am Sjoerd van Buren,
born in Sneek,
at the 30th of april, 1941…
The town of Sneek is found in the north of The Netherlands…
In the Province of Friesland,
where we are bilangual, and speak the Frisian language, as well, straight on…
Outspoken…
It is a province with many lakes, with splendid skirts of reed and also very green, with lots of grass…
There is a map, of Sneek from 1645, where this city still is shown as just a place,
of fresh water, like Venice (salt)…
Everything there done, was done by boat…!
Even in the narrowest alleys…
Even to grow your onions, lettice, or your sprouts…!
Friesland is as well a province, with famous cows, where also the Frisian Horse, is a kind in it self…
(just take a look, at Wikipedia…!
Look for the women, long robed, standing on horseback, mending three of them, in one…!)
Fryslân DOK: It Swarte Goud – Diel 3: Yn ‘e krêft – YouTube
I have sailed there quite a lot, even as a sail-instructor
(small ships riggid with only 16 sq. mtrs. of sail, but never a loss of wind! ).
For two winters, in the weekends, there I have milked, by hand, a few cows…,
just to make a difference, where I frequented my Gymnasium-B…
But, since the lakes became too small, I could sign on, for a sailors-engagement…
For two years, every year, two months, I steered the wheel, on watch,
between Trondhjem, and Lisbon, and Liverpool and Hamburg, too, with a lot of stops in between…
Essential, existential, experiences, I never had been able, to do without…!
For me an unevitable necessity, to find my way to God, but even more than this:
My personal Identity, in Him…
In other words to say: This universe, in its unmeasured depths, for ever, shall be, my womb…!
Life after Life…
My Witness, eternal: GOD …
Where I finished my studies, in theology (but not only this), at the University of Groningen, 1976,
I quit my membership of the Reformed Church, for twenty years…
To wit, I just appeared (with my master of arts, in theology), not yet enough prepared,
and also not complete, where even the church, couldn’t offer me, anymore,
than a faint glow in the dark, of just a hardly present God…
Too far away.
Only, to be “believed” in…
But never a Friend, by heart…!
Where it was Martin Luther, who sought a mercyful God, to be there…,
it was me, to ask for a God, to be close enough, for a, face to face, understanding…
Like, may be, God once was really there, for, Abraham…
And, after him, many others…
But still, try to understand this in its own way…!
Of course it was not me, to plant this seed, of thought…
It was the Landlord himself, to be my Gardener…
Maybe, I showed to be blessed enough, to be His fruitful soil…
So, I went my way, to find, as in the Book, it’s named…:
΅a tiny cloud, like a mans hand…΅
Awaiting rain…
May I say, that so, I became a -prodigal- son…?
But understand the word -prodigal- very well!
Just read it like:
Under a BINDING PROMISE …
Pro – dicere …
Nowhere, there is a God in vain…!
Or lost…
It’s us.
We should realize ourselves…
Where it is explicitely said, in the parabel, that this son asks his father,
for his heritage…
Still unaware, where this -Heritage- only can be, a God-ly one…
Mind well the promises, God, Abrahem made…:
The stars in the sky, the sands of the sea…!
Who ever asked…?
Where this Father, in this parable, stands for God himself…
Who…, of us, will ever be able to imagine, what God, as who He is,
prepares, to everyone of us, to inherit, once…,
His, hardly to believe, or to be imagined…: Heritage …!
But, no way!
It never has been ment to be a sack of money, full of sin, just to be spoiled, the wrong way,
John Bunyan delianated us, so picturesque…
There ever has been much more in it, us to be spelled…
Maybe, it has had to be kept secret, for us to understand, for the last two-thousend years…
So, get out of here…!
Where even the church, can be a womb…
For fourty weeks…, fourty years…, fourty lives…?
Still to be left…?
Behind…?
Never, anywhere, Gods plan, to be relinquished…
Ask God, to invite you to the desert…
No place elsewhere, where God is closer…
He even sends you crows, to feed you, there!
So let me warn you, I can, may be, a dangerous man, in thoughts…
Philosopher…?
To leave the house of God…
You never walk alone…!
Once, it will be your turn, you once will come back Home,
with what you found, underway…
Not only a victim, maybe it is, in disguise, God himself…
But recognize your self, as well, to have become a Samaritan…
A stranger for your brother, who stayed at home…
Worshipping his Father, as his Old Man…
Amen.
Since 1997, I came back again to the church…
This coming back, happend to have been foresaid, by myself, in 1984…
Where I spoke:
΅When I will be called… In one day, I shall be there…΅
Still, in this coming back…, there was not any sense…!
Not any ear, to hear, the news, I had to render…
That’s why, I think, I should do better, to give you here account,
of my noteworthy being here, wherein, I myself, personally,
have been allowed, to live my godly adventure, to be mercyful endured…
Besides, I received a message, to be fortold…
Namely:
Aquarius, yet, has arrived, to its beginning…
This was made me clear, in 1980, by means of a prediction…
Of course, this message, still needed the opportunity, to get its meaning…
So I was allowed to live, still more than thirty years, with this prediction…
Obviously, it was even a neccessity for me, to live this prediction, thoroughly
through, where I, at last, could learn about its meaning, and its content…
Closer precised, it even must have been, a processs of rebirth…
But who knows the bible, may also know, that this notion, has been put into circulation, already for two-thousend years…
(Please realize yourself, ″rebirthing″ , as you like…, can still be experienced a thousend times, and more, and more…
But still not, what I mean…)
Nevertheless, it might be thinkable, that the coming two-thousend years, of Aquarius,
are meant, to make us part, in this rebirth, at last…
You do not need to believe it…
May be, you even can’t…
But the message might be this:
You once will be able to see it by yourself…
Ever…
It may be even clear, that the rebrith, I may have gone through,
rather thoroughly changed my orientation on religion…
But this is then about what we have made out of religion,
the last two-thousend, three-thousend years…
Besides, with this, for my surprise, I yet met with very good company…
It is namely Karl Barth, theologue and reverend, who still put it this way…:
“Religion ist Unglaube.”
Where religion even can be -un-believe- …
In other words:
Religions as well, can have bad disorder, like ailments under its members…
But how serious shall it be taken?
Besides, which Jesus ever has been aspired to create a religion…?
A what!?
Realize yourself, that with this, in Europe, a beginning can have been made,
where the converted heathens, in the fourth, fifth, century,
in their keenness, christianity have made into a religion of state…
With as consequence of it, after Roman receipt:
Everyone a believer.
But what then now?
Everyone full to the brim?
Yes.
But being born, man does not, everyone, at the same time…
So religion, may, at last, be like a horinzontal beliefs-undertaking.
It even can fall back in a ″belief assumption″ between the ears, or just a few steps farther crumbled away,
in a borderless ″some-ism″…
In Dutch: een grenzenloos “ietsisme”…
But even then, religion, possibly, can represent itself as folklore, stumbling back in tribalistic sentiments,
which, to and fro, like to pop up in pandemic outlines…
I almost would think, that the church also could be a womb…
Has ever then, someone returned there in?
No.
The message is a totally different one.
God is as worldly, worldlike, as He can…
And has work to be done, which likely likes to be done without too much of believing hotch-potch…
But we still not dare to do…
Scurrying around, assiduous looking for compromises,
making the job, done, halve-way…
Please note, I can imagine, that lots of people may be struck with the fear of the haert,
where now would come out, that we a hundred times more precise, should walk along the lines…
But this I never found, not any at all.
Not, out of any point of view, God is a moralist.
Presume, that even just religon, has been willing to make Him so…
May I resume that ever still, they followed here Xenophanes, without realizing it.
It was Xenophanes who put it this way, that where the animals would also have had hands,
they for themselves would have made images of God, by their own nature and shape…
But animals are not moralist…
Besides, religion can be no childrens toy…
Forget it!
God loves naughty people…
They still get something done.
Brave believers, walking behind their nose, in prayer, leave the victim where he lies,
where it is the Samaritan, despised as well, who takes the necessary care,
and brings him under shelter…
Reverend F. de Graaff, at Hattem, represented it me this like:
“Mister Van Buren, we still might be christianised,
but not converted, yet…”
Be still aware, that the parable ends, where the victim is asked:
“Who of these three, has been your fellow-creature…?
“Unfortunately, there will be lots of misunderstanding here,
where the concept of convertion, most people completely may put on the loose…
It cannot not mean, to become religious again…
Go away!
In principle, convertion, may be, a process of becoming, genese, genesis as well,
which may settle us, as thoroughly new, in our personal fundament.
Here in lies the core of our nowadays crisis of identity…
Even where it may be put in these words, like creation and genese,
this personal fundament, should preferably, be of divine origin…
However, in how far this fundament could be religious as well,
in the way, religions represent themselves, seems very doubtful…
No.
The churches, after Nietzsche, have for long times yet,
become like caverns and graves, of the passed away God…
“Und wir haben Ihn getötet…”
and it is us who killed Him…
This may mean, that we did believe in God, starving Him to dead…
Yet even these phrases are not too strange for the bible…!
Possibly the bible is the book, most, still excellent, in religion-criticism…
For me, my rebirth-happening became evident, where I, on Easter Sunday 1997,
as an apotheosis, of having had already, for ten weeks an angel around me, received the message,
that I first should take a shower, for a while…
However, for the next few moments, I was not given enough time to dry myself,
where, in the Spirit, I was made clear, that like so, as it still, me had been fortold,
in my naked blood, had to appaer for the table, I had prepared, a few weeks before…
What you see, is Tenach, the Hebrew testament.
The Apple, not fallen, too far from my Tree…
Te-Na-Ch stands for: Thora, Neviïm and Chetuvim…
The Five Books of Moses, The great Profets and the Smaller Scriptures.
who still is back, born as well, in our world… (see: ’tekenen’ deel drie, (not finished yet…))
And you see the App;e (Big Apple! Bought as a keepsake, in New York)…
Tenach lays opened at Isaiah 56 : 7… : “For My House shall be named a House of Prayer, for ALL of the nations…”
I may believe, that God himself opened here Tenach, by my own hands, because a week, seven days, after this,
I drove on my bike, through the Pastoorstreet in Arnhem.
The same text stood there, written on the rooflist, of the Arnhem Synagoge…
I may understand, that God knows for everything to happen in this universe, a time and a aplace, anywhere in space,
with its eternal coordinates… (since any “big bang”…!)
Why should not we, wish, to tick like a clock, on the just time, set by Gods Hand …
About my Tree of life…:
The first pot, at the bottom, is there for myself, Sjoerd van Buren.
The next for my father, Rients van Buren…
The third for my grandfather, Sjoerd van Buren.
The fourth for my grand-grandfather, Rients Sjoerd van Buren. In Dutch: overgrootvader …
The fifth is there for, as we say it in Dutch…: Mijn bet-overgrootvader…, Sjoerd Jelles van Buren.
And so, the christmasball is there for, only to be said in Dutch, my “betover-grootvadertje” …
Where betoveren , may be understood, like cast a spell on, enchant, or charm…
The Big Apple is there for Rémy, alias, my son…
Not begotten, as a consequence of my practicing family-planning…
I continue:
I was just to realize myself, here, that this was a baptism with fire, but in addition…
I was not yet “dry behind my ears”…
But Easter and Pentecost, as well, both, fell on one and this same day…
As a story on itself…
To be skipped aside, for the moment…
Apparently, the experiences I here describe, are for a much longer time,
yet not strange to the world…
It seems like they already assured themselves a place in the book of proverbs…
But next to this, I still have to mention onother special event.
Namely that a week before, on Palm Sunday, as well,
I had been part in an amazing experience, as a special happening…
In my Sunday suit, I was baptised with water.
Where I stood in the middle of a wall of water, two meters high and eight meters long…
A happy driver, apparently could n’t resist, just driving through a puddle of water, of the given lenght.
But of course, he did not do this, all by himself…
It may have happened to him…
My conclusion:
Go and splash churchgoers wet!
In this way, you once, yourself, will be envolved in Gods own great story!
For this driver, in due time, absolutely, will not be able to keep himself dry…
See it, as an immeasurable gesture of mercy:
So he will get himself once, soaked to choose…
But, how, ever, could pass this to me…?
Who knows…!
Capital…!
W !
Ha, ha…!
Yes, for sure there is control, like steering, as well in this world…
Even through a puddle of water…
Or through a Shell Sea…
How was it about then?
Did God baptise the Farao there…
In his bedding to starve…
With his whole army?
A sea on the map?
Just a handful of water…
Out of Gods own hand…
Just a few two-thousend years later, it was Constantine,
yes, you kwow, the one of the rocking horse (maybe it ’s from a rhime, only known in The Netherlands…)…,
at last got still babtised, in his death-bed …!
God is no bunglar!
And He has an unmeasurable humour.
You hear Him laugh, from the ends of the world, far past away from the borders of this universe…
Twelve years before these experiences, I hvae been in a, more or less,
psychotic mood, on my way to Wezep…
But I never arrived there.
I ended up in Hattem, with reverend: ds. dr. F. De Graaff.
I thought, I shouldn’t go into the town, with my psychotic behaviour…
A cyclist approached.
I jumped out of my car and asked him: ″Can you tell me…
to be continued…