Fist entry since last July’s 31st! But, not to despair, because the Dutch 2018 wall calendar in front of me has many entries and notes for the current month! I won’t spell them all out, but some should get a mention.

This goes most of all for my son’s Metta visit of last Thursday evening late and lasting until tomorrow morning early. Metta and I had a wonderful connect highlighted by our lunch at the Sait Taster Market and our visit to Banff last Monday.

This began with a hot spring pool warm-up, followed by a cellared lunch, a walk in the park of the National Park Head office and a drink at the Banff Springs hotel. Next was a late visit to the White museum, then a drive by of the Banff Centre, a dinner at The Elk and an icecream from the old ’Candy Shop’. Mid afternoon the weather and smoke had cleared giving fine vistas of the mountains in Banff as well as for our way home in Metta’s newly acquired road machine, to wit a ’new’ Civic with Pioneer sound! A day to remember and cherish and a fine birthday gift as I am now 82 years of age. My heartfelt thanks to you Metta.

A day to remember and cherish and a fine birthday gift as I am now 82 years of age. My heartfelt thanks to you Metta.

Other events of this month were having beer with BJ as James on Fourth on my birthday as he was leaving to join his family to live in Zurich for the foreseeable future. A sad parting for both sides, as I have known BJ and Sarah since the spring of 2009.

The day before my birthday I renewed my operator’s licence, while earlier this month I purchased my new yearly seniors transit pass for 135$$. On the 5th I had a long conversation with Jeltsje, my friend in Apeldoorn NL, and friend of my late sister Els. Jeltsje has some serious health set backs and faces a change in her life style. The 10th was a record hot day at 37dC and on the 7th I did my monthly grocery shopping.

On Sunday the 12th I had my talk for the Calgary Life Enrichment Centre (CLEC) titled “World Belief Teachings”. It took me much mental work to put it all together, but all went well and my presentation was well received by a fine audience. The relating essay is posted on my website in the category ‘Topicals’.

Yesterday was my younger sister Tieneke’s birthday, but I have yet to speak to her as they did not pick up; out celebrating probably. I’ll try again today. Also yesterday, I visited the Knox United noon service again after an hiatus last week. And I should mention that Metta joined me in attending last Sunday’s meeting at the Palliser with my CLEC friends there.

And that covers most activities except for a coffee I had with Elisabeth at Second Cup and last but not least, our family dinner at John and Tammy’s last Sunday with Annie their daughter and Metta altogether in celebration of my birthday. >10:20am and 10:38am after coffee and continuing below.

Yesterday I joined the Know United noon service group where reverent Greg gave us the theme “Calling” to think about as supported by the one page handout. Those always contain some relating quotes and a New Testament reference reading. We are asked for our own thoughts after Greg has introduced the topic and one of us has read the quotes or text.

I commented that I always have some difficulty with ‘receiving a calling’ as that pre-empts choice on the part of the human. I added that I look at life as a journey in discovery for me as human to make. This solicited a reply in the sentiment that I would know better than god as to what to do. Much hilarity at that suggestion with the effect of shifting the conversation! Humour often does that and I have used it that way myself.

This morning though, I am not done with this idea of receiving a calling. I have two friends, who both have had a calling experience one as a vision and the other as a voice. So, I know that there are such experiences. I had a new ‘insight’ as I call that several times in my one life, but those were more like an encouragement or clarification relating to my life’s activity at that time.

This morning I am musing calling as possible, but so is vision, guidance, insight, intuition or what I call ‘steerage’, meaning being given a ‘course correction’ to consider. Then there is the idea that a person can spend much time and effort in searching for meaning or purpose in one’s life. The “Seek and you will find” kind of experience. <10:58am and continuing at 2:33pm>

All these different phenomenon point to our human ability to become aware of something that is new to us and therefore can be experienced as coming from the outside,

But, I could also say that ‘discovery is my calling’ in the sense of the Genesis charge to the newly created human: “Go and have dominion …”. Then there is my personal experience of following your intuition like I did when looking for a place to rent in 1994, when I was selling our family home at divorce time.

To intuit something is to become aware of a direct inner knowing, to be distinguished from ‘feeling’. Feelings are about emotions and values, whereas intuition is about knowing. I had to learn to distinguish between theme, developing my discernment skills.
To become aware of a calling is to become aware of a ‘force’ or urge that appears to originate outside one self, that is one that is experienced as being separate from one’s own direct awareness. It comes close to a revelation as in seeing a vision or hearing a voice.

All these different phenomenon point to our human ability to become aware of something that is new to us and therefore can be experienced as coming from the outside, in which case a long process of assimilation usually follows and is often necessary as well.

So, what whenever one becomes aware of such a new impulsive force, it should be heeded and not dismissed as inconvenient or unrealistic. There is a warning against such dismissive action in the gospel of Thomas saying: “If you don’t express what’s within you, it will destroy you.” This can happen in the case of ignored and suppressed creativity that will then turn to negative expression such as illness or destructive addictions.

Genesis says that god created humans in his [sic] image, which means that we humans are creative being too and should express that ethically as we humans have discovered. Not all creativity is ethically good, and even when it is, we should guard against using it in an evil way. This is where humans have something over the divine. <2:56pm and 3:23pm after edit~