Friendship - Part 1 - My Contacts

My Contacts - or where have all my friends gone.

I am struggling to get to grips with the classification of people I know. I think that they should not be classified, but somehow I am forced to do that, because my email has folders for family, friends, contacts, etc. - and so has my cell phone.

How am I to classify them if I do not have a formal system to do that, because, if I am not really careful, I may classify a friend as a contact and not find him under the friends category when I want to phone him, specially when he has improved in his status towards me in recent times, having remembered by birthday, but it also works the other way round.

Life in the afternoon - Part 11 (Last) - Divine healing revisited ... and please don't feed the animals

Life in the Afternoon - much more than a story of soaring - and reflections of that on my life.

by P.K.Odendaal. 1 January 2012.

Part 11 - Divine healing revisited - and please don't feed the animals.

I believe in divine healing, despite my earlier unpleasant experiences in this regard, and God knew that too - so I had to start from scratch again a few decades later.

One evening during the closing service of one of our yearly conferences, I was suffering from severe back pain, which just did not want to go away. At the end of the service God said that anybody who had an ailment should come forward so that the pastors could lay hands on them and pray for them, and I thought, this was my chance.

Life in the afternoon - Part 10 - Faith and the blessed assurance

Life in the Afternoon - much more than a story of soaring - and reflections of that on my life.

by P.K.Odendaal. 1 January 2012.

Part 10 - Faith and the Blessed Assurance.

My reliance on intellectual interpretations to understand religion and scripture, was about to change drastically - as I thought it would - for the simple reason that only the mind can act on the normal senses which are used for intellectual activities. Spiritual activities are being watched by other senses like faith and discernment - and even many other parts of the body - known as manifestations or discernment in the body.

Life in the Afternoon - Part 9 - Friendship and Free will

Life in the Afternoon - much more than a story of soaring - and reflections of that on my life.

by P.K.Odendaal. 23 October 2011.

Part 9 - Morality, Free Will and Friendship.

Firstly, a not so short digression to introduce you to Morality and Free Will.

Every new Christian meets up with Mr. Legality from the town of Morality straight away, and every new Christian falls for the goods he sells. He is such a gentleman with such good manners and intentions. In fact - you will find no trace of sin in him, because he leads the perfect life. He lives according to a system of rigid moral and ethical rules and laws, and he thinks that his law abiding life will ultimately be awarded with the highest honours in Heaven, but what makes him really impressive, is the pretentious semblance of godliness he wears on his face.

Life in the Afternoon - Part 8 - The search begins

Life in the Afternoon - much more than a story of soaring - and reflections of that on my life.

by P.K.Odendaal. 23 October 2011.

Part 8 - The Search begins

On having heard the testimony of a friend, who told me that God is working today as He worked two thousand years ago with signs and wonders, I had to do something. I would not allow myself to miss the opportunity or possibility of proving this if it was true, or rejecting it if it was false - and I would do it the scientific way, because my training was strictly scientific and technical, and I knew how to prove or disprove a scientific hypothesis.

Life in the Afternoon - Part 7 - My testimony

Life in the Afternoon - much more than a story of soaring - and reflections of that on my life.

by P.K.Odendaal. 23 October 2011.

Part 7 - My Personal Testimony ... Freedom and Peace for ever.

I started this story off with the intention of writing it only in one or two parts, about a specific enjoyable soaring flight, but one thing led to another - as it usually does in life - and I am now find myself in Part 7, observing how the thought thermals of my mind developed around me. Yes, I was personally involved in this flight, but on reflection, it seems to me that I was also just an observer and an onlooker as this story developed and unfolded into much more than that.

Life in the Afternoon - Part 6 - Cry freedom

Life in the Afternoon - much more than a story of soaring - and reflections of that on my life.

by P.K.Odendaal. 23 October 2011.

 

I have inserted disconcerting paragraphs on freedom in the middle of this article recently.

Part 6 - Cry freedom.

I do not know much about crying and even less about freedom, but I can see that all over the world, people who are seeking freedom, people who have freedom, and people who do not know what freedom is, is Crying Freedom. I also Cry Freedom. but why?

Life in the Afternoon - Part 5 - Mapping

Life in the Afternoon - much more than a story of soaring - and reflections of that on my life by P.K.Odendaal. 23 October 2011.

Part 5 - Mapping.

Joburg ATC :    Alfa Sierra Kilo, no 'known traffic' to affect your flight up to flight level 150.

ASK21 (me) :   Copied, Alfa Sierra Kilo.

'Known traffic' - yes - that's the keyword and the reason why I wear a parachute when I fly a glider. If they do not know about traffic due to some pilot not calling them, it is not 'known traffic', meaning that if one of these unknown traffic objects hit me in mid-air by chance, it will not be their responsibility - it will only be me who will be doing the dying. I know that there are normally, over weekends, other gliders in this airspace who do not talk to ATC, so I wear a parachute in the not so unlikely event of a mid-air collision. If you go from A to B, the chances of a mid-air collision are very slim, but if you linger in one area going up and down and circling, it becomes a hazard that you must watch out for.

Life in the Afternoon - Part 4 - Masking

Life in the Afternoon - much more than a story of soaring - and reflections of that on my life by P.K.Odendaal. 23 October 2011.

Part 4 - Masking.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes - and ships - and sealing-wax ...
Of cabbages - and kings ...
And why the sea is boiling hot ...
And whether pigs have wings."

From the 'Walrus and the Carpenter' By Lewis Carroll

Today I have had a flying start. It is a new day and a new flight and who knows what the flight of my mind might bring. My hangar neighbour, Willie, has offered to hold my wing up, while I start the take off roll, which enables me to have this flying start without the concomitant yaw and balancing act I normally have to do, starting with a wing on the ground, similar to the yaws and unbalance I had, when I started off my life without someone to hold my wing up.

Life in the afternoon - Part 3 - I have a flying start

Life in the Afternoon - a story of soaring - and reflections of that on my life by P.K.Odendaal. 23 October 2011.

 

Part 3 - I get a flying start ....

The previous part ended with my prayer being answered ... and myself reaching home.

My words flew up, my thoughts remain below

Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (from Hamlet, by Shakespeare)

My story began with the glider reaching two thousand feet, and I, cutting myself loose from the surly bonds of earth, by shutting down the engine, but to have come to that stage, I had to have had a flying start.