I keep thinking about the art of living and the art of dying. I wonder how so many people can turn away so easily from the reality of death? Take my mom, she's going to be eighty in March and death influences in no way her daily routine. She will live forever while she never thinks about death and this is not proving her wisdom, she is simply closing her eyes for it like an ostrich is pushing its head into the sand. But why condemn such behavior while it's just another personal reaction towards an inevitable reality? We will live as long as it has been given to us, we can feel as healthy as a...

Hi Rebecca,

Adding a third part to my previous letter. I had a little correspondence with my friend Salima on the troubles during the right-wing flemish manifestation here in Ghent. As this is not a personal letter I'd like to send you part of the text too. Please also see the interesting vid underneath. The whole film ("Fatherland", with dutch actor Rutger Hauer) is on YouTube and is definitely worth seeing. This is not Europe as it is, but as it could have been. And it could become like that again!

Yes, this is indeed truly alarming and probably difficult...

Hello William,

Not to flatter you but these are wise words, born from an ample experience of life and showing a true longing for the divine. Of the points you have touched what mainly stayed with me was this short sentence: "the spirit is how we regard that we perceive". Permit me to interpret it as such: we are blinded by our own choices! Prejudice is more influential and widely spread than we tend to think. When we believe the spirit does not exist or hardly exists we will not perceive things (as) spiritual either, and we will not perceive and recognize their obvious...

This suddenly struck me and I must note it down before the business of the coming week makes me forget: we can only be consoled in difficult moments by what we really believe! It makes no sense for me to pray to a crucifix or to mother Mary, because that is not a mythology that I'm inclined to share. I believe in other "stories", perhaps the story that is told by science or by nature, perhaps the story of love, or perhaps some story that I invented myself, as long as it is convincing to me, as long as it makes sense to me and I'm able to believe it. It is not difficult to see that many...

Time is a strange thing. We are living our lives and doing our thing, and mostly time is reduced to a neutral and functional concept, without any deeper emotions. The meeting is at nine a.m. and will last for about three hours, the deadline for that rapport is the 23rd of January, having your master's degree in philosophy will take you four years... But at certain moments we also experience another side of time. We feel that time inevitably passes and can never be stopped, that whatever we do or live is a moment in time, that everything will be over soon, to our relief or to our frustration. And...

My previous account -or rather anticipation- seems improbable on a number of points. Whatever be our condition a doctor will seldom give up treatment, the more desperate the situation the more radical will be his remedies, and these are often only applied for the doctor's own pride and satisfaction (and of course for his wallet). And doctors will always give you hope and you will always tend to believe them. Even a failing heart can be replaced by an other, whether biological or mechanical, and it's the same with many other vital parts or functions. Many people can only survive with some huge...

Let me suppose the following situation. I am terminally ill and I just heard that I only have about six months to live. According to the doctor it could be three months or it could be nine months, while no exact period can be given. I will certainly not die by my disease in three months and I will certainly be dead in one year. I hear this on the third of January which implies that I will most probably not see another Christmas. But I will probably still see spring and if I'm lucky the flowers of summer. Today it's the fourth of January and I'm rising from my bed at 7.30, supposedly after a sleepless...

I just saw the movie "Dead Air", an entertaining semi-symbolic film about "America's worst fears". It was well made, well acted, exciting even, but it left me with that uneasy feeling that keeps coming back to me and that I have to articulate if I want to get rid of it. "All America's worst fears..." was the tagline, again a movie made by and for americans, dominated by the american perspective, generated and bred by the american state of mind. Again a movie dropped in my country that is not my (direct) business or my prime interest, and not even presented as a curiosity...

Howdy Salima,

Just a totally silly story that I have to tell you (dunno why really). More than twenty years ago I was the first librarian of the Management School of the University of G... I was young, healthy, ambitious and bright (ahum), I reorganised the library from tip to toe and I was highly appreciated as a librarian and a professional. And believe it or not I was hugely popular! When I left the School to become the new librarian of the Faculty of ... I was given a goodbye party, and as a present I was even offered a trip to New York. And though I knew Lilian for some time...

We are looking for God in all the wrong places. Why is God hiding from our view (Deus Absconditus), though he's standing right before our noses? Because for some reasons -mainly the specific myths from which originated judeo-christian religion- we keep pushing God aside in our search for God. We are placing him in some unknown beyond that is not his place and that may not even exist. God is not the creator separated from his creation, he is the creation that unceasingly creates itself. God is not hidden from our senses -as deficient as they are- but he is plainly obvious, being all around us,...