That what never would be done

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Something on your “to-do list” that never gets done.

I have a bucket list, with some wishes I know I never shall see to be fulfilled.

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In the 1990s I took care for an ecclesia in Gujarat, India. I arranged all matters from Belgium. Lots of times they asked me to come to visit the ecclesia in real life. But having some auto-immune diseases it was impossible for me to go there.

Already, when I booked an all-in trip to Turkey, I landed up in a hospital for one week, with the meals ransomed to little but rice water and drip.

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Warm countries, where there is not much of hygiene, are out of the question. Though I would love to visit India, Thailand, and Korea. But of those countries, I only shall be able to dream of visiting them. I even would love to go to do again a round trip throughout Turkey, when Erdogan is gone. But also that adventure through that beautiful country may stay by just a dream or wishful thinking.

For the rest, I must admit that I would still like to do a lot in my life, so I fear that it may be a bit too short to succeed in achieving everything I wish to do.

Complaining the most about the mentality of the present generation

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What do you complain about the most?

I am not somebody who complains much, though I do criticise the way most people live in our society and how they (mis)treat the environment.

Today, there does not seem to be much social contact any more. Lots of eyes are concentrated on that little screen, where they get lost in a fake world.

I do agree it can be a generation clash. Historically, we often see how the older generation complained about the newer generation (Nothing new under the sun.)

What annoys me most is how our world has put the focus on gaining money and material assets as much as possible. By the youth, we notice that a lot also turns around the ‘outlooks’. Their gadgets have to be up-to-date and as posh as possible. They are not really watching the news, to know what happens in the world. For them, it is much more fun to enjoy the many ‘funny’ YouTube videos and influencers’ blogs, where they are caught in advertising stories (often with not seeing or understanding how they are lured in buying things and being captured by the imperialist capitalist mentality.)

I also notice that there are so many people living next to each other instead of each other. I regret that. However, we do not get any further with complaints, so I insist with my various websites to let some lights burn here and there that can act positively and so people might talk to each other again and enjoy life.

 

Watching detectives for pleasure time

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What do you enjoy doing most in your leisure time?

When I am not writing an article for one of my many websites and not preparing a service for my church, in the day time I twice to three times take the time to have a walk and put my mind at rest.

From around 9 pm to midnight, it is “showtime”. Time to distract myself by watching television. After watching the news of the day, I let myself go by watching some nature documentaries and thriller series, having me wonder “who don it”.
Sometimes we also have a film on the menu.

In any case, the moving pictures, by binge watching a series or getting carried away by a film or documentary, lets me enjoy the night and bring me in other spheres and worlds of adventure.

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Is he doing it again

In 2016, Mr. Donald Trump’s win in New Hampshire put him on a path to the nomination and ultimately the presidency.
In those days, no one had taken it seriously when one would have said that this clown would win and become the 45th President of the United States.

After the storming of the Capitol, it would be thought that many more Americans would have opened their eyes and recognised the true facts of that gentleman.
Strangely enough, the Republican party appears unwilling to take a firm stand on what they expect from a democracy and a leader of the nation.

It is incomprehensible that in the Republican party there are no more people standing up against that bully who makes it a sport to mock others.

Eight years after he won in New Hampshire the state delivered again for him.

Ron DeSantis has already given up on this and asked its voters to vote for Trump, which many probably did. Taking this up will not make it easy for the other republican candidate.

The American politician who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2017–18) in the administration of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump, the first woman to serve as governor of South Carolina (2011–17) was not afraid to go against the bully after the many years she supported him.
Nikki Haley was critical of his response to the attack on the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. For her it became clear those two older men had had their time. It was

“time for a new generation.”

As the first Republican to challenge Trump, who had announced his candidacy in 2022, the race soon became crowded as others — including Mike Pence, Chris Christie, and Ron DeSantis — entered the contest. But they left soon, leaving a woman as the opponent of her old master.

At the Iowa caucuses despite the numerous criminal charges the 77-year-old faces, or his bizarre ramblings about sharks and electrocutions, trump did not turn supporters away. He won the Iowa caucuses with a record 30-percentage-point margin of victory over his nearest rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley.

In Europe many of us might find Trump’s very presence on the world stage darkly comical, if not dangerous, a majority of Americans seem not to see the danger this man can be for worldpeace. There’s every chance he and his MAGA crew will have the last laugh again this time round.

On Saturday January the 20th, Nikki Haley questioned former President Donald Trump’s mental stability, after he confused her with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times.

“Trump is at a rally and he’s going on and on, mentioning me several times as to why I didn’t take security during the Capitol riots. Why I didn’t handle Jan. 6 better,”

Haley said during a rally in New Hampshire.

“I wasn’t even in DC on Jan. 6.”

Haley added that when

“you’re dealing with the pressures of a presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do it.”

The two GOP candidates have been sparring ahead of the New Hampshire primary.

Yesterday January 23, the former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley was left in the dust and had to face what political analysts had considered her last and best chance to slow Trump his march to the Republican nomination. She finished 11 percentage points behind Trump. Despite the disappointing showing, she claimed that the race was

“far from over.”

Haley, who was popular with New Hampshire independents, argues she can beat President Joe Biden more easily and vowed to stay in the race. Biden, who lost last time in New Hampshire, wasn’t on the ballot due “to a primary-scheduling clash”, but he easily beat lesser-known Democrats after an organised write-in effort.

As of the latest vote tally on Wednesday afternoon, nearly 318,000 New Hampshire Republicans and independents cast votes in the first-in-the-nation primary. That exceeded the previous record set in the 2020 Democratic primary, when more than 298,000 Democrats and independents decided a contest between U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of neighbouring Vermont, former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and a crowded field.

The AP estimates the total turnout in this year’s Republican primary will be approximately 330,000.

We can only hope that in a country where the money determines whether one can become president, Nikki Haley can get enough funds and people to continue the race.

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Find also to read

1. GOP candidates campaign on final day before frigid Iowa caucuses
2. To remember in the third week of January 2024
3. Death to the GOP! Or not.

Some people appear in life when most needed

More than once, I needed spiritual guidance. That guidance I could find in the Book of books, where I found out more about God and His sent one, Jesus Christ the son of God.

In addition to God, el Shaddai (the Strong One) and His son, we can also find people in our lives who can support us at very difficult moments in our lives. They are figures that may disappear in the crowd, but are important to us. They know how to lift us up in difficult moments and carry us further over deep abysses that we must cross.

Some people appear in your life when you need them most.

Learn more about who is the person who most influences me in my life:

The man who has positively impacted my life

The man who has positively impacted my life

Daily writing prompt

Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.

View all responses

If I were asked who influenced my life the most, I can only take one person.

Of course, several people, especially in my field, inspired me enormously and those men and women were very important for my personal as well as professional development.

But outside of working life, there is personal life, where there is earthly or physical life, but much more essential spiritual life. In that area, two figures play a very indispensable role in my life. However, the first is not a man, but an eternal spiritual being, so not counting this question. The other figure that determines a lot in my life is the sent of that Spirit, namely the son of God, Jesus Christ.

Even though I had been a believer all my life, there was a turning point when after a very long dawdle I finally dared to tie the knot and was determined not to join the majority of people, but clearly choose Jesus Christ as the son of God and not to see him as a “god the son“.

This allowed me to grow further in the belief in that man whom I saw as the long-awaited Saviour or Messiah. I also got to know him better through the Holy Scriptures and several bourgeois writings.
It is those Scriptures that I still let myself be guided daily.

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Dutch version: Een man die mijn leven positief heeft beïnvloed

Een man die mijn leven positief heeft beïnvloed

 

Daily writing prompt

Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.

Beschrijf een man die je leven positief heeft beïnvloed.

View all responses

Als men me zou vragen wie mijn leven het meest beïnvloed heeft kan ik slechts één persoon nomen.

Natuurlijk hebben meerdere mensen, vooral in mijn vakgebied, me enorm geïnspireerd en waren die mannen en vrouwen zeer belangrijk voor mijn persoonlijke zowel als professionele ontwikkeling.

Maar buiten het beroepsleven is er het persoonlijke leven, waarbij er het aardse of fysieke leven is, maar veel belangrijker het geestelijke leven. Op dat vlak zijn er twee figuren die een zeer belangrijke rol in mijn leven spelen. De eerste is echter geen man, maar een eeuwig geestelijk wezen, dus niet meetellend voor deze vraag. De andere figuur die heel veel in mijn leven bepaalt, is dan wel de gezondene van die Geest, namelijk de zoon van God, Jezus Christus.

Ook al was ik al heel mijn leven gelovig, kwam er toch een kering toen ik na zeer lang treuzelen toch uiteindelijk de knoop durfde doorhakken en vast besloten was om niet mee te heulen met de meerderheid van de mensen, maar duidelijk te kiezen voor Jezus Christus als zoon van God en hem niet te aanschouwen als een “god de zoon“.

Zo kon ik verder groeien in het geloof in die man welke ik aanschouwde als de lang verwachte Verlosser of Messias. Ik leerde hem verder beter kennen door de Heilige Schrift en meerdere burgerlijke geschriften.
Het zijn die Geschriften die ik mij nog altijd dagelijks laat leiden.

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Vindt ook te lezen:

1. De meest invloedrijke man in mijn leven
2. Christadelfiaanse geloofspunten #7 Jezus de Emmanuel of God met ons
3. Verkondiger Jezus ook de redder

I registered on WordPress.com 13 years ago

Today I got the message

Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!

You registered on WordPress.com 13 years ago.

Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging.

 

Some think 13 is an unlucky number. I’ve had enough “malheur” this summer, so I’m looking at some more luck now.

2010 December 6, 1° article placed on WordPress site

After I opened on the last day of December 2006 with “Opening“, it took some years before I came to WordPress.

On December the 6th I greeted the WordPress community, with “Hello World” and “Hallo Wereld“. It was the beginning of myself having to end some Spaces and with A move in Spaces entering the world of the content management system WordPress, first with Marcus Ampe’s Space, trying the system out, whilst I still kept Blogspot.

In my first year on WordPress (2010), I got 3.988 views, followed by not such-a bad year, getting 14.047 views. Then it took until 2018 before again having some high figures, namely 15.763 views. The cyphers decreased, but that can also be because I wrote much more on my other websites. Last year I got 4.398 visitors and this year only 4.135 visitors, making up for a total of 101.137 views.

I must also admit that (strangely for myself) I did get a lot more personal on this site this year, as I had provided a space with Some View on the World to go deeper into the day’s events.

For this personal site, I have 343 subscribers, which, to be honest, I do not consider many.
Though, on my latest site “Some View on the World” I only have 107 subscribers. There I got for its first year, in 2021 2.036 views, with a peak in 2022 reaching 6.706 and offering but a very frustrating 3.392 views up to today for 2023, making up for 9.103 views for 6.248 posts people can find on that site, which had a 4150 articles transferred from my Blogspot Blogger account.

Our World New Name for Christadelphian World 2014 March 14

Some View on the World, its original counterpart got already 2.245.719 views up to now, for 4.156 postings between 24 November 2005 and 3 October 2021, when I invited people to reconnect with WordPress. (316K views for the last year on Our World.)

My From Guestwriters site with its 3.708 articles up to today, I commenced in 2014, retrieving at that time 3.124 views. Coronatime was on all of my sites the best time, probably numerous people having more time to sit on the internet and spending time to read. 32. 679 view for 2020. This year it only got a low of 5.294, making up for 101.215 views.

For me, my Christian or church websites are the most important.

Renewed Christadelphian ecclesia site from November 2-7, 2015 (Cerauno theme variation with green on Novemer 2)

My Belgian Christadelphian ecclesia site, Ecclesia Brussel-Leuven where 2,536 posts were published between 2010 and today, started with 243 views in its first year. Today it totals 167.525 views.

My Brethren in Christ – Broeders in Christus site got on its way on WordPress in 2011 fetching 711 views. Up to today for the 759 posts it got 74.778 views.

On request, to have a typical Dutch-language website alongside our brothers in the Netherlands, I created, as the latest addition, the Belgian Brothers in Christ website: Belgische Broeders in Christus in 2021. In its first year getting 523 views. Up until now, only 145 posts have been published, making up for 2.344 views.

The website where you are now reading this review article, among many other websites that I write for, is really just meant to be a personal “doodle” site. So actually it serves more as a “personal journal” instead of a “daily blog”, which others are free to have a look at.

Even if it is just to put down a personal thought, I must honestly admit that I would have wished for a bit more readers for certain articles, both here and on certain other sites. (We usually write to be read, don’t we?)

Who knows, maybe things will improve after a while. So, on this 13th anniversary, I am heading for better times with more readers.

All the best, and hope to see you again!

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Preceding

Hello world!

A move in Spaces

Internet absurdities

Historical Ziegfeld and other Multiply Groups

20 years at the personal computer

Journal for and from bothered citizens

Changing screens

2013 Lifestyle, religiously and spiritualy

A new voice calling for peace

Looking for Free Blogs and blogging

Refurbished ecclesia site

Five years on WordPress

From old times and sites to new linkings

From MSN Groups and MSN Spaces via Multiply to Blogspot now transferring to WordPress

Much news — and too many voices

WordPress appears to have fallen off its best horse

A Classic Editor versus Block Editor

WordPress forces us to use Block editor

WordPress or Jetpack

Or love your job …. Or change job

 

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Related

About Reaching readers

1. Writer’s Problem
2. What is ‘good’ writing?
3. 50 Ways To Reach Your Reader #6: Newsletters & Mailing Lists
4. Reaching Readers: An Interview with Alastair Horne
5. So how on earth do you reach new readers with social media?
6. Self publishers – how to reach your future readers…… tips and
7. Pros and Cons of Self Publishing
8. Helpful Blog Posts – May 2013
9. 100,000 Books In The Hands Of Readers
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11. Diversifying for Discoverability?
12. RSVP: Decoding Social Media
13. Do Readers Care about Your Rants?
14. There is Room for All of Us
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16. What Did You Say?

Going for the later hours of the day

Are you more of a night or morning person?

Autumn and winter present to me dark cold mornings. Having had to work until late at night, you might say those later hours got me hooked.

Even on retirement, though now I can go earlier to bed than 1.30 in the night, it still seems difficult to get me and my night woman into bed before 12 am..

After our evening meal we enjoy watching the news followed by some detective or a film. For the series, you could say we have become binch watchers, consuming one episode after the other, day after day. 🎞🕵️‍♀️🦀🧟‍♀️🎬🌝😙🌚

I love dogs and Turkeys pigeons

What are your favorite animals?

Most of the time, I would love to have a dog around me. I prefer the big dogs, like the German Shepherd. One of my sweethearts was also the Irish Setter, the sporting dog of my wife, though she was a jealous friend of mine.

Not having a large enough living room for a German Shephard and only having a little garden of 65 m² we choose for a smaller breed.

Our last dog, a Shetland Collie, or Sheltie a lively sheepdog, was so nice and sweet, it was really hurting a lot when we had to let him go to sleep forever. For some years, I could not have another dog. After so many years now, I honestly dream of getting a dog again, (but give me some other 5 years or so, before taking the step again).

We always took the dog with us on trips. This did not always make it easy to visit museums and required us to take turns in ‘shifts’ or ‘shifts’ to visit the museum or castle. Provided that we would not like to leave our dog in a kennel when we travel, we therefore wait and see, before purchasing a new dog. First, we want to do some city trips and visit some museums abroad.

Our Fritz

When the time is right, I shall look forward to taking another ‘best friend of man’ in the house. Then I shall be obliged to go out, good or bad weather, to have my daily strolls. And in the house, I shall also have someone else to talk to, and to cuddle.

Depending on the size of the living room and the garden, the choice of the dog shall be taken, either a big or a small shepherd.

To have a nice animal around in the garden, I love all the small birds, enjoying a lot the chirping sparrows and merrily singing tits. While among the larger birds, the Turkish turtledove [Barbary dove, ringed turtle dove, ringneck dove, ring-necked turtle dove, or ring dove (Streptopelia risoria)] is one of my favourites. As a child, this is how I got and cherished my first pair of doves.

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Photo by Jose Almeida on Pexels.com

Not every animal can take the place of my favourite animal. But besides Shelties, I also find horses very beautiful animals. More times than not, I stand in admiration of their mighty muscle formations.

As a teenager, I learned to ride a pony at summer camp. It never got any further, though several of my brothers and sisters rode horses. As an adult, I did consider taking in abused horses, but that simply turned out to be far too pricey (or impossibly expensive). My son did get to attend horse camps.

In any case, my love for other animals goes so far that I have always denounced animal injustice and stood up for their welfare. Besides, as fellow creatures of Divine creation, it is our duty to take care of them and their environment.

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