My readers - from where are they?

 

My Pilgrimage through life – Part 1 - My Spiritual Camino

My Pilgrimage through life – Part 1 - My Spiritual journey

In Spanish, "camino" translates to road, path, way, or journey. It can be used literally to describe a physical route or figuratively to represent a course of action or direction in life

After traveling for decades on my personal road to the Celestial City, a city very far from here, I have come to realize that I have to write about my journey to comfort weary pilgrims who have also chosen this journey to redemption, freedom, self-development, self-expression, exploration and exhilaration.

A pilgrimage on which I have been accompanied by the Greatest Of All Mentors, acting as my Lord, saviour, companion, friend and inspiration.

I was partially inspired to embark on this pilgrimage some decades ago due to the inspiration I found from reading the book "The Pilgrim's Progress" by John Bunyan - a book everyone on planet Earth should read and which I might have read about three times since. It is an allegorical tale written as a dream while he was jailed for many years, because of preaching the gospel as a lay preacher without being indoctrinated by the Catholic Church first, something not allowed by that  church. Even today, most churches indoctrinate their preachers before they may preach the gospel. 

The story is of a man called Christian, and few co-pilgrims, fleeing from the City of Destruction, meaning This World, to the Celestial City, meaning Heaven, and encountering vicious physical enemies along the way, such as Mr. Morality and the Giant Despair, as a metaphor for spiritual enemies, on their journey. Some pilgrims quitting and some persisting.

Bunyan paid a heavy price, being persecuted and imprisoned, for embarking on this journey, which seemed to him worthwhile and which proved to me to be exhilarating, profound, eventful and consoling in the extreme.

Why Bunyan was persecuted, confounds me. Why does one have to be indoctrinated to understand and explain a very simple gospel? Being able to read is quite enough! It is a very simple gospel, totally summed up in John 3:16 "For God so loved the world …."

That is really all we need to know.

As a side note, I know that this excursion into some aspects of my pilgrimage, since I was young, will make up a few volumes, having had the honour and opportunity to travel this road less traveled for seven decades and quite possibly for another few. Therefore, I will publish it as a series of articles as a preliminary work in progress on my blog.

Where and what is the Celestial City and how does one get there?

Who on Earth will travel to some distant country far away, without knowing where it is, how to find it and what is to be found there. Columbus is a prime example, but many people I meet in everyday life are too, not realizing it? 

This pilgrimage is a serious journey to a well known place of note, from which we never wish to return. It is real and surreal; practical and mystical, dangerous and rewarding, packed with faith and doubt, and packed with fear and bravado. It is the best excursion we can ever go on in our lives. It was and still is that for me – and it is getting more interesting and exciting by the day.

Do not ever look back or yearn to return to the City of Destruction; we do not have eyes in our backs.

This journey you might wish to take with me is not only of traveling, but also one rich in religious issues, spiritual experiences, history, war, peace and philosophy - sometimes plain and simple, and sometimes quite intricate and mysterious.

My readers are of a special kind or select group - people who are here on earth, like myself, to explore life inside out, or from within us to everything around us. Exploring God's plan for us and admiring His universe. Pushing the envelope of experience, knowledge and actions to unfathomable limits.

As they say: We are going for gold.

Also sometimes I will write quite humourously about things secular like in ... 

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.

Do you believe in the saving grace of God through the sacrificial blood of Jesus Christ? Then you are on a Spiritual Camino like I am.  But, I will not stop there. I will  become a warrior in the spirit and join the forces of God to finally triumph over Satan and the forces of evil - in the spirit, but also manifesting or mimicking it in the body. I have no sentiment with an entity or enemy who commands his demons like slaves to destroy everything holy, angelic, sacrosanct and godly.

So, whilst I am on this spiritual journey, called a camino, I will join forces with God's children to travel the earthly caminos called El Camino, leading to Santiago de Compostela. Routes on which over seven hundred thousand Christians yearly travel. I will also take the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual lessons that I learn on these physical caminos to enrich my own spiritual life and that of others.

To Think or not to Think ... that is the Question - A satire

To Think or not to Think ... that is the Question - A satire by P.K. Odendaal October 2024

From Descartes we have the statement: I think, therefore I am. Wow! What I farce. For the long or brief periods when I do not think, I am inanimate or even vegetable.
In fact, should I never think and follow the global Woke movement who are not capable of thought.

From Shakespeare we have the adage: To be or not to be ... that is the question. 

We can easily adulterate or hybridize the two above statements and form a new one: To think or not to think ... that is the question.

Redemption or suicide - take your choice

 Redemption or suicide - take your choice - by P.K. Odendaal March 2024

There has been many instances in history and society where people have chosen suicide in stead of redemption, to their own destruction and nihilation.

Judas Iscariot, who sold Jesus Christ to the pharisees, and Hitler, who was instrumental in the death of millions of people, were two.

My prayer when riding the French Camino in May 2024 with a bicycle

My prayer when riding the French Camino in May 2024 with a bicycle

God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
It is with humility, veneration and admiration that I contemplate your omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence and your universe with everything that is in it.

The Quest for Wisdom

 

The quest for information, knowledge understanding and wisdom

Yes, we were born without any of these. Shall we remain so, or shall we strive for wisdom – our ultimate quest?

It is said that a fool knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Shall we have all the information there is in this world or even the universe, and remain fools?

It seems to me that most of us do not even get out of the starting blocks and are not interested in information at all. We feed on what was good for yesterday and for our ancestors.

The Turing Test should be revised

 Just more than seventy years ago, Alan Turing, working on the first crude computer which had intelligence, made a statement on how to establish when a source of intelligence was human or artificial intelligence.

A fruit salad of religious thoughts

Today I am on an excursion into the labyrinths of religious conventional wisdom, trying to set the record straight. We have wandered too far away from the evident truths of the Bible, even changed it to suit our delusional concept of God and translated it so many times - almost into oblivion, so that it can mean anything for anyone.

God is a utilitarian par excellence

 God is a utilitarian par excellence.

One of the best qualities I like and attribute to God is His utilitarianism, and by extension our utilitarianism which is a spin off of our free will. Similarly, it is also a spin off of God's free will.

In essence, utilitarianism is the act of doing the best for yourself or for groups on whose behalf you may act or choose.

The Root of all Evil - Part 2

 The Root of all Evil – Part 2 – by P.K. Odendaal July 2023

My previous article on the root of all evil is pure drivel.

Will I delete that article or will I keep it here on my repertoire as a lesson in folly? Yes, I will keep it here, as the endeavour and accomplishment of humankind is fraught with error, omission, folly and evil. I make no excuse.

What this exercise in folly really taught me, is that an idea which has slumbered in my soul for too long - the idea that expressing an opinion is useless, fruitless, superficial and egoistic, has been let loose.