Category: Personal

freedom and devotion

I am watching the documentary on Gloriavale Christian Community. The title is interesting, Devotion: Obedience or Betrayal. Cults interest me!

Let me start by saying that I have no idea of their theology. I did look at their website and (big tick from me) they are KJV only. And, yes, there are bad people among them. But there are bad people everywhere! I do not have the numbers (and taking the moral outrage out of it): are they, for example, statistically worse than your average sports club? Maybe the issue is expectation?!

So my first take: there is a lot of talk about freedom in the second episode, Sins of the Father, centering on mind control (taking an individuals freedom by cohesion) and brainwashing Of course, no person would willingly join! Or would they? The assumption is that people in any cult are irrational and shown the error of their ways would leave. (This, of course, simply ends in battling authorities.) Yet, what I see are people who are completely committed to their understanding of the Christian life.

So, I wonder, in complete freedom, can an individual surrender that freedom to someone else?

loyalty over gut

What’s a time you followed your gut and it turned out to be exactly right?

The truth is I have valued loyalty over my gut instinct. When something or someone feels wrong, I want to remain loyal. I trust the other more than I trust me. The other, after all, is better than me!!!

Maybe another way is that I tend to preach being proactive but I live react!?

internet!?

What’s a piece of media (book, movie, song) that changed how you see the world?

I am so old that I remember life before TV, telephones (that is, landline), and the internet. I remember the excitement of a colour TV and our first landline phone. My parents had a typewriter that I used as a little boy.

So maybe the internet? It opened ideas and the writings of individual people. It allowed me to connect with people from all over and exchange views and life-experiences. It opened the world beyond my small part of it.

fiction?! Yep!!

If you could change the ending of any book, which one would it be?

A little strange but …

The ending of Dan Brown’s Demons and Angles is terrible. It actually made me laugh out loud. (If you know, you know!) I normally enjoy Brown’s books, and I enjoyed Demons and Angles, but the ending is just plain weird and does not make sense in the context of the book.

and understand?

Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life?

I speak (write and read) English really poorly, as evidenced by this blog. That is my go-to language and the language in which I mainly think.

I understand German since it is my first language. I can read it but not really speak or write. It changes the way I think and reason. Also gives me words that have no English translation.

How has it impacted me? I read German books in public and sometimes get strange looks. I also understand people when they think they are speaking privately. But it is my life and I know no different.

you do you

What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you?

Wasn’t this a prompt the other day?!

Best advice from me to me is “you do you”. Do not look outside, find the real you inside. Other people are important but do not hitch your wagon to anyone or anything. Be you!