Getting acquainted.

At the 27th of April, I  began writing blogs. I will try to write one every month. Not always in English. Normally in Dutch. In the LinkedIn-group 'Writers and Bloggers' I asked, what I should do. Writing my blogs in English or in Dutch as my native language?

During a long time one of the barriers to at last start writing a blog was: in what language shall I do that? Next to this also: what about shall I write and how does it technically spoken works? Of course most of my potential readers would be Dutch people. Friends and colleagues. But I have also friends in different other countries. They do not (yet?) speak my language. In many talks one could communicate something.Sometimes written texts are so much farther reaching. One can read it once again and maybe at an other moment,sothat maybe an other light falls upon the same expressed thoughts.

In the meanwhile I got Facebook-friends  in various different areas of the world and LinkedInconnections as well.  The new Facebookfriends from all over the world keep on being quite amorf, when I never hear a bit more of them and they not of me. Facebook/friends are more interested in personal things. LinkedInconnections are more abstractly spoken ´connections´. A network. I can feel a kind a kind of solidarity, because I hope we can be of some help for each other. A bit more directed on professional life and on Dutch speaking people than on personal stuff. As a journalist I am working with and in Dutch speaking language. Along this way I also hope to find work which generates money, for a part of my living.

At the same time I do appreciate the international LinkedIncontact with people in the same (especially)writing, editing and journalistisc fields of my professional life. Important was for me in this respect the nice experience with people from ´Writers and Bloggers´, coming from all over the world. They wanted to help me getting an answer on the matter ofin what language I should write. That gave me a real feeling of a bigger community I am in, worldwide, without knowing that before.
A Sicilian poet said he writes poems in Sicilian/Italian. It was in that language/dialect he was finding his poetic themes. But translated into English he could share with other people in the world. An Indian person found it better writing in English directly, because Eng,ish is a worldlanguage. A Dutch writer of childrenstories at her turn feels the richness also of the Dutch language. She could and would not lay that aside. All these voices from unknown people helped me to find an answer on my question± fundamentally I will write in Dutch and so everey now and then in English.

Who I am. I said LinkedIn for me is more directed on Dutch speaking people. Along this way I also hope to find work that generates money, for a part of my living. A part of my living...that means there is also an other part. Half-time I am working as a minister in the Protestant Church in the Netherlands, for twenty-five years now. Some ten years ago I felt not only wanting to be minister during the rest of my professional life.I always also wanted being active on scientific research and journalistic writing or a combination of both. The year 2005 was a turning point. I could transform my ministerial activity into work on a half-time basis, in the same congegation in Amsterdam New-West. In this way I could start writing a book and building at a praxis as a free lance journalist. In order to really fnd time and thereby concentration for writing I work the one week full-time  as a minister and the other week I can fully dedicate to these other ambitions. I also got to rent a small apartment in Deventer, a nice town in the east of our country. From January last year onwards. So, I am separating both of my working fields in time and in space.

My themes. The theme of my book is ´The mission of the church, in a globalizing situation´. Not yet the definite title of my book. So, the connection between church and society is my main theme here. It is a reflection on my work together with many others from different backgrounds in the neighbourhood. A part of the city of Amsterdam, where there are living many Dutch people from Maroccan and Turkish background and where many are living on the poor side of life. What should be our goals as a church in such a situation and why should we be active on these themes?
Important matter of research are here the questions on ´religion´ and on in what globalizing society-system we are living. ´Religion´ must be looked upon as a much broader field than what can be summarized in the different one-liners one can hear around. Such as ´Religion creates violence, it is only dangerous, fundamentalist thinking and it has only connections to personal/individual life´.
The other important matter of research is the experience of living i a globalizing world influenced by ICT and not only in our own little neighbourhood.  And also - what influence has neoliberal thinking and practice of austerity, privatization and deregulation on the lives of especially poorer people? How deep is the impact of the neoliberalist ideology on our lives? Positive or negative?

This general theme of my book and the research on it in détails generate a great amount of derived sub/themes where about I can easily write. You can think of intercultural/interreligious life, social-economic and political developments around the actual crisis, the content of poverty for people who get to pay this crisis, healthcare-situiation in the neighbourhood. This kind of themes can be written about without an explicit connection tomy christian background.
In my LinkedIn-profile I showed a further article-scopus - experience with the new social media, living knowledge of psychology of borderliner, experiences with dating-sites, travel- and atmosphere-stories (f.e. Italy, Great-Britain, Germany, Norway), development of socialism in Cuba, healthcare and market, history (research about resistance-movement in Worldwar II). So, as you see, all together quite different issues. Not so much day-journalism, but stuff for backgroundarticles. Not somuch for the front-page, but for magazines or weekend enclosures or even little books.

In this blog I wanted to give some first information on who I am. For people who I did not know from before. As sunjects for the future ofmy blog-writing you migth imagine a theme out of this broad spectrum of themes. Not a summary of my Dutch texts, but for Dutch-speaking people something which migth also be interesting for them. In this way will become clear that my life itself and the development of what is interesting me at some certain moment is like a flowing caleidoscope.