Sunday morning medley

There’s still a little bit of your song in my ear
There’s still a little bit of your words I long to hear
without you, the world around me changes
the trees are bare and everywhere the streets are strangers

I heard there was a secret code that David played
and he pleased the lord
but you don't really care
for music, do you?

you can fall for pretty strangers
and the promises they hold
still, your silence can be beautiful
but also very cold

the Antichrist

One day in the train through the Netherlands. A easy way to make money while focused reading literature I otherwise would have read at distraction-speed at home, a perfect chat-with-strangers occassion and at the same time an act of promoting cheap environmentally friendly transportation (and a indirect protest against the privatization and therefore terribly expensive rates for Dutch railway traffic). My day started with leaving a beloved package of curls in Amersfoort. They disappeared in the BONGO, the Peacechild bus, to far away Copenhagen, the place where the wild things and soon other world decision/change makers are.

Talking to strangers, asking them to share a Blokker promotion ticket (purchasable for 27,50 euros, allowing two people to travel throughout the Netherlands from 9 in the morning until midnight), provided me with an interesting sample of Dutch population: an activist, a Protestant mother, a first year medical student in Groningen, an older women who used to be a teacher at a Montissori school, an Iraq illegial refugee talking about the refugee centre in the Netherlands and complaing about the phrase that seems to follow him everywhere he asks about possible Dutch paper: wachten, wachten. wachten. Wait, wait, wait.

First I took an energetic (and to my standards honestly attractive) climate activist to share a ride, then I witnessed my name in the editors section of a newly published book which made me smile, just some minutes later there was the Christian young mother with 7 weeks old baby Emmanuel who was on her way home to Zwolle. She used to work as a pharmacy assistent, but took some months off to care for her newborn next generation. When I offered her a ride for 5 euros (instead of 11), she didn't hesitate. I didn't only get a part of my ticket paid back, but got a free conversation all the way from Amersfoort to Zwolle. I told her about vegetarianism, breast feeding, Climate justice, about Food Inc, the fact the world food provision is mainly in the hands of 5 big commercial megabusinesses, while this power used to be shared by 100's of them. This was the moment she presented me to the Antichrist.

The Antichrist is part of a Bible story in the New Testament called 'the Revelation'. It is the last story of the Bible, talking about the fate of the earth and humankind, the apocalyps. I hereby don't refer to the story as it is written (as I did not read it yet), but just try to parafrase my co-traveller. According to the Revelation, there will come a day that all food provision is in the hands of one big business, a commercial monopoly. It seems unlikely, but if you know almost all food in the world is in the hand of only 5 big multinational businesses, it is no understatement that we are clearly approaching that time. On the day the food-dictatorship will be a fact, Jezus will return to the Earth to pick up all Christians and bring them straight to heaven. They will be saved from the terror that will follow. The first 3,5 years of the Christians left, the world will be more or less peaceful. Something will happen to the Jews, as they are (acoording to the Christians) also close to Jezus' beliefs and maybe they will even be saved right after the Christians. Still according to the Revelation (and now it gets even more scary) the people who are left on the globe, will be "coded" with a chip implant in their arm. The food-dictator, who is at the same time in political power, manages to keep peace for 3,5 years, then the tide turns. The Antichrist will come to the Earth and join forces with the food industry.The Antichrist is in every aspect the opposite of Jezus. If forgiving is an act that brings you closer to God and Jezus, because forgiveness, caring, love and compassion is the literal translation of these two well-known personification, then the Antichrist is a cold, calculated being, not allowing himself to forgive, treating others who used to be and are close to him as material you just throw away and step on as on a dying sigarette on the floor. The Antichrist does not care that forgiving brings your heart closer to Jezus, he would rather stick to stubbornness then talk and find a solution with those who ask for forgiveness and friendship. With the Antichrist, the world will end. It will be an end that will last for 3,5 years until everything of the world as we know it, is gone. Still, hopefully the predictions won't be as accurate as it seems...