Dads stories

Trust in God

Monday 6th December 1999.
Now lets talk about God. I have been waiting for a while (patiently) that you would show your colours. I thought one of these days you would come out with it. Can you please tell me how come you – a non-churchgoer – still pay them their taxes..and, as you say, with conviction?
Since we have been in Australia I still owe them the first cent! The church here is not subsidised by the State, but is totally provided for by the congregation. This has its good and bad sides I would say. But then I don’t really know much about that, Inge would have a better idea. They, Dennis and Inge, are in our family the big pillars of the temple! The rest seem mostly uninterested, at least at the moment. I am a small exception (very small) there. Even though I am just as disinterested, I am interested in the spiritual, like I have mentioned several times before, more from a psychological and philosophical viewpoint. And this leads me to my hobby horse. But first I will eat my morning muesli and then if possible continue my night’s rest. Till later…
It is now 9am and I had a good sleep. Next time I will head to bed will be around lunchtime, or maybe even 4pm, depends. Hedwig is different. She usually stays up and then goes to sleep around 6pm but by 8 pm is back about and starts her evening program. But now she is still asleep, probably until 11am. But all of that can change from one day to the next, and a new timetable evolves all on its own!
To continue on.
You can imagine that in my job I totally overextended myself. I did not have the necessary educational preparation, neither in the academic nor in the technical sphere. The job of Technical Director in Germany only goes to Professional Engineers. A diploma/degree is a prerequisiste. I knew this but I also knew the Melbourne Theatre Company and knew, that I was up to the expectations. After all I had worked well as Stage Carpenter for 4 years. What I was not very clear on, even though I had some inklings, was the huge ambition of this company. Very soon we were the biggest Drama company in the southern hemisphere, with 3 Theatres and the usual tours. We were directly behind the Berlin Theatre, and that only because of their sheer workforce size. Our budget was and remained to be our biggest problem. The government subsidies were totally inadequate. Only the fact that we were mothered by the Melbourne University, saved us often from bankruptcy. Apart from that we were employees of the University and hence a part of them. Nice!
What has all that to do with God? In my case, a lot.
It didn’t take long and I was sent to Adelaide, to an international conference for the building of small regional theatres, to speak as an Australian expert. I could have turned this down. But it was never my way to hide from things. So…into the fun I went. There the international theatre experts were gathered, germany being represented by the unavoidable doctors and professors. I had prepared a speech. Not that I didn’t have anything to say, the difficulties of the Australian small theatres were close to my heart, considering I had to have all the decorations for all the localities we visted on tour, made up ahead of time, and that it was usually unavoidable that I had to come along, despite the lack of time I had.
Well, I am not the best speaker in town, on the contrary, I am the worst. So I had my papers prepared and read the speech. I don’t know if I shook. But I definitely suffered from stage fright. The room was full (of experts). It was a horror for me. But what was I to do?
This was repeated on anoher occasion, that I was sent off as Australian expert for small theatres. This time to the writers conference in Canberra. And this time I had to, without any prior warning and preparation, be part of a panel on stage. I had no other choice but to utter a quick prayer….”help me”. This time, to my utter amazement, I relaxed and even managed to get the audience to laugh. The exact same thing was repeated the following year, this “help me”, followed by a very pronounced “Thank you”.
I had no idea who I was speaking to. It was around the time of my interest in Carl Jung. Also the time I studied the I Ching. This is important to know. I learned from the Oracles (or via the oracles) that one should maintain a positive attititude, even more than that, to take along an attitude of “being better” as a prerequisite.
In any case, the results both times impressed me. And more and more when I came into difficult situations, the “help me” had the same effect., especially when I had to convince other people about some idea or other. I never lost an important conference. I was simply “on top”. In my office it happened occasionally that difficult personnel problems had to be solved either on behalf of or between employees. When things got a bit heated, I used my “help me”. It became my magic verse. And I never forgot the “thank you” afterwards. And this ability never left me.
Of course I spent a lot of time mulling this over. It was like a prayer, or how I would have imagined a prayer to be. But instead of expressing the entire words, I used my formula. That had a side benefit …in that I became very confident.
So what has all this to do with God? A lot!
If we assume that God is omnipotent and omnipresent, and there are as many arguments for as against, after all he is our creator and where else should he be than in his creation, then he is also within us. Strange? Not if you take time to think it through. Hence you don’t have to jodel one hallelujah after the other….prayer becomes the most natural thing in the world. This is nothing new…but has always been so, everywhere, in the entire creation. The expert on God – Jesus – said: “God is Spirit”. So then, God is Spirit, not A SPIRIT or A GHOST, like the translation claims. And if God is Spirit, then he is the driving creative energy. And that after all is nothing new, the creative energy. It has been going on since the big bang!
So your prayer “come on, allow me a bit longer” was in my view totally correct. To get back to the Omnipotence. You probably don’t believe that you contacted God 12 billion light years away. In your view he must have been quite close, I would have to say extremely close, within you! Assuming that is the case, where is he now? Kids stuff isn’t it?
One could continue discussing this ad infinitum. You teach young people who have problems. What these young people lack most, I assume, is confidence, the biggest force that is inside us! One could call it just as easily trust in God! He who has absolute trust in God, can never go wrong. He will definitely discover his potential and achieve it!

posted by Inge @ 1:09 am