"Don't Give Up!"

One thing that interests me enormously is synchronicity. Sometimes little things happen to me that make me feel as if the universe itself, or God if you prefer, is trying to tell me something. Often it is a message of hope and optimism at a time when I feel both those things slipping away from me. My last full day in portering is a good example, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/ben-civilian.html. I can think of many other instances. Something like that has happened again today. Last week, after I finished my article on the last voyage of the RMS St Helena, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/goodbye-rms.html, I remembered something from my past that gave me similar feelings that I should have added to the article and I made a note to bring it up in a future post. When I was a child, my family used to spend every summer holiday at my grandparents' home in the Netherlands. They lived in a town called Mook which was on the banks of the river Maas or Meuse. This was a very wide river and a ferryboat linked Mook to the town of Katwijk on the opposite bank (If you don't speak Dutch you will probably pronounce these names wrongly). For me, as a young boy, the ferry was an object of wonder and delight. She was a roll-on-roll-off pontoon ferry with two ramps and gates at each end and a conning tower on one beam. She could hold half a dozen cars with space for foot and cycle passengers at the side. The journey across the river only took about two minutes, but it thrilled me. It was symbolic of the experience of being with my Dutch family. Sometimes we walked, sometimes drove and occasionally rode bicycles. The ferry was called God Met Ons III which means "God is with us, the third". Then, one year, we turned up and the ferry was gone. I was devastated. I was a fairly sentimental boy by nature, but I surprised myself by how upset I was. We soon found out the reason; it was because a new bridge had been built at Haven Cuijk and so the ferry was no longer needed. My father has always been extremely pragmatic; today he is a staunch Remoaner. At the time he tried to pacify me: "I'm afraid that's progress, Ben. You just have to accept it." I recall imagining a story about the ferry crew refusing to give up their vessel. I was very sad for the entire holiday. I remember taking a cycle ride with my dad and brother and being unable to enjoy it because I was grieving for the ferry. For me the right thing to do would be not to build the bridge at all just so that the ferry could stay. That made sense to me. There is a part of me that still honours those priorities. This is why I felt as I did about the RMS.

I always assumed that the ferry had been dragged away for scrap, as the RMS might, but I never heard any more about the matter until this very day. Then, as I was recording Programme 24 of Third Rail Radio, see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/third-rail-radio-programme-24.html, the subject came up where I was doing a segment on the RMS and I decided to Google the name "God Met Ons" just see what I could find. I was astonished to see several photographs of the old Mook-Katwijk ferry, recent pictures too and not from the river crossing. I visited the pages and realized to my joy that the old God Met Ons III is still afloat and in service. She was never scrapped at all! However she is no longer in the Netherlands, she is in Ireland. She crosses the channel between Knightstown and Valentia Island at Dingle Bay in County Kerry, see: http://www.valentiaisland.ie/life-business/valentia-island-car-ferry/. Funnily enough I have been to Ireland twice and wanted to go to Dingle Bay, but was thwarted on both occasions. The first time I had to lend my friend money and ran out of funds; the second time I went with a man from a local pub and fell out with him soon after we arrived in Dublin. If I had got there I might have discovered the happy truth earlier. I don't know how God Met Ons III managed to end up on the west coast of Ireland. I'm in touch with the crew in her Facebook group so hopefully they'll fill me in. The faithful old ferry is due to be replaced; she was launched in 1965 so she's had a good innings. I was just really happy to see her again. This uplifted my spirit at just the right time when I needed it. Other things have happened recently that have got me down, see: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/is-there-any-hope.html. Maybe this was another message of comfort and support from God, or the universe, or whatever you want to call it. It is telling me: "Don't give up!" I'm reminded of Dr Joe Dispenza in the brilliant film What the Bleep Do We Know!? where he says: "I wake up in the morning and I consciously create my day the way I want it to happen. When I create my day and out of nowhere little things happen that are so unexplainable, I know that they are the process or the result of my creation. I say, 'I'm taking this time to create my day. Show me a sign today that you paid attention to any one of these things that I created, and bring them in a way that I won't expect, so I'm as surprised at my ability to be able to experience these things. And make it so that I have no doubt that it's come from you,'." Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5nqMjPJhlA. I had another piece of synchronicity just a few days ago too. I was walking along trying to think of a name and suddenly it was right in front of me as a line of graffiti on a metal rail. It easy for a skeptic to write these events off as coincidence; but, as I explain here, that is a fallacy, see: https://youtu.be/ljglQk1umvI?t=47m1s. I believe what happened today was a genuine piece of synchronicity. Whoever you are, thank you. Thank you so much.

See here for more information: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/findhorn.html.

And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/ben-goes-on-tor.html.

And: http://hpanwo.blogspot.co.uk/2008/06/now-thats-weird-conference-2008.html.