Time to put in the first laundry load and now due in about thirty (30) minutes. This month’s scene of my Dutch calendar is from Friesland (Dokkum), where I spent quite a few sailing holydays in its lake district. First in the sailing school of the ‘Witte Hei’ - White Moors - our national church youth center and later with my sister Els and some friends on our own. Mixed memories, but dear ones at that.

Friesland being the old heartland (0 - 900AD) of the Friesian lands that stretched from Duinkerken (Dunkirk which means ‘Dune Church‘) in France to Jutland of Denmark today.

That Friesian country has its own character, being the old heartland (0 - 900AD) of the Friesian lands that stretched from Duinkerken (Dunkirk which means ‘Dune Church‘) in France to Jutland of Denmark today. And, when you spend time there, the road and town signs remind you of the Friesian language, just in case you thought you were in Holland! To just make sure, North Holland is also called West Friesland on the Dutch maps!

The Labour day it self I spent at home, had a long coffee with Jack, read most of Miller’s “150 Years of Healing”. It is an overview of the “New Thought” movement from Quimby to the present. I also completed reading “The Courage to Teach”, which is quite a thoughtful book, with many valuable suggestions. Last Sunday afternoon I drove Elisabeth to the airport and on Saturday I met up with John and said hello to Annie.

Yesterday I made some notes on a significant overnight dream and expanded a bit on its implications. These turned out to be quite significant and occupied me for the rest of the day and still do at present; see below under writings. And with this laundry calls. Done, with the next at 9am.

The dream I referred to in the Diary section deals with an old theme of mine that relates to ‘authority’ in our human traditions and society. The foregoing evening I had been thinking about the idea that humans are possibly their own authority, but are not in charge of existence.

The idea of being your own authority personally and also as a human species collectively, has always been a conceptual no-mans land to me. Humanity, without an authoritative reference set over them/us, has always scared me from proceeding into that no-man’s, on account of our own many missteps in history.

And yet, the handed down authority concepts, be they secular or religious in reference, no longer function adequately in our time.

And yet, the handed down authority concepts, be they secular or religious in reference, no longer function adequately in our time. They need a new reference themselves to enable and inform our present global processes. Our human responsibilities have greatly expanded, but our authoritative references have remained bound in traditional concepts, such as sovereignty and religious authority, both based on old scripts and values, held back to protect established interests, where instead we need to be defining new ones.

So, with this in mind as background, I was entertaining the ‘what if’ of humans saying ‘we are our own authority’. Creation stories and their associated authority are no longer valid, because we know the processes through which stars, planets and humans came to exist. So, where is the source of human authority? Can we do it on our own? Can we be successful in being our own authority, defining new rules of governance without going off into the deep end? After all, humans have discovered much about the existence we are in and are quite successful in many respects. Then why is it that we are still so reluctant to take hold of the reins of our own conduct and formulate our purpose within our existence as we know it?

That Monday evening I retired with that thought in mind. The dream of that night combined two experiences. [Returning at 9:32am from laundry]
One was that I felt peaceful, pleasant and satisfied, while the second [now 9:45 after coffee] experience, simultaneously with the first, was that of my looking into the face of Malala which looked up at me with an approving smile. This scene remained for a while, waking me up as I held it and maintaining it for some time. The memory of this dream scene I can still recall now.

Working with the emotions and images of the dream and the significant image of the Malala like face lead me to the following observations. The feeling of peace and satisfaction were similar to the feeling that I felt the night before about superseding the handed down image and teachings of authority. This was something that needed to be faced. The smiling Malala face means approval to me, because her person [Malala Yousafzai] in our public square, is one of defiance of handed down authority ‘par excellence‘, namely that of the Taliban.

The dream gave me a ‘good to go’ on my idea to question established sources and traditions of authority.

So, there I was Tuesday morning with that powerful and meaningful dream unexpectedly confronting me with ‘way to go’, so to speak. That is not to just consider a renewal of old authority, but an impulse from that dream to apply and implement these notions and proceed in that direction, overriding all my previous misgivings. [10am- laundry time and back at 10:22am.]

The dream gave me a ‘good to go’ on my idea to question established sources and traditions of authority. That was my conclusion about the message that this dream conveyed to me and I spent the rest of Tuesday contemplating this conclusion, letting it work and sink its way in. During the late afternoon yesterday, I made some notes resulting from that process.

These notes are in handwriting on page 30 and 31 of my Blue ‘Norcom’ cahier, mentioned in foregoing entries. In the second paragraph of page 30, I note that whereas I may rebel against ‘taught authority’, I do accept ‘discovered authority’, which constitutes the insight I wanted to record yesterday aft.

I continue in paragraph three with noting that “… I deduce discovered authority from within existence, much like a law of nature …” which we discover also. So this discovered authority then must modify and be added to the taught handed down authority.

I quote from the bottom of page 30: “The discovered authority proceeds from and is inherent to ‘Existence Divine’ as I human am not in charge myself, even of myself at times and am discovering human existence experiencing enriching the totality of Existence Divine.”
At the bottom of page 31 I have the following:
“P.S: To discover authority you need to know about it first, hence we need(ed) that revelation of it first.”
<10:43am; Thus far the mentioned notes.

So this discovered authority then must modify and be added to the taught handed down authority.

Now at around 8:06pm, all I want to add is that ‘discovered authority’ is an idea that has legs. It can be deduced, observed, changed in applications among other possibilities. This is because discovered authority is informed by experience past and present and can be applied along with taught or handed down authority where that is applicable. This preempts the conflict between the old and the new, since the two can merge to form a common ground and integrated source for modern authority.
<8:11pm~