Created for two worlds

So, picking up where I finished last time.

Creation consists of the heavenly and the earthly realm, the invisible spirit world and the world we perceive with our natural senses. The Book of Genesis describes how God made both and separated them, and then continues to describe the work God did in the visible, earthly realm.

This creative work of God ends on the sixth day with the creation of man. Now there are a few things that stick out to me when I read through this story in the Bible. I hope that I get all this right from a theological point of view and would be happy about any insights you can share with me about these topics.

First of all, man is different from every other creature God made so far, in regards to being created “in the image of God”. Now there are many different approaches to what that means, but I think it includes one thing for sure, and that is that just as God is Spirit (see John 4:24), man was also created as a spirit. The apostle Paul wrote about “spirit, soul and body” in his first letter to the Thessalonians. I am not 100% sure, since I can not verify it myself, but I ever read also that the word for “created” in this context of the creation of man is a Hebrew word that describes a creation ex nihilo, that means God created man out of nothing, with no raw material so to say.

This is in contrast to the second account of the creation of man at the beginning of Genesis, where it is said that God “formed man from the dust of the ground” and then “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life”. Forming man from the dust of the ground clearly involves a raw material God used in this creative process, and it is clearly the creation of the physical part, the earthly part of the human existence. The Hebrew word for “breath” is “ruach”, which means equally “spirit”. So, putting all this together, it looks to me like God created man as a spirit out of nothing, and then formed a body for that spirit from earthly matter, and then settled that spirit into the body, their connection turning man into the living soul he is. Could that be correct?

The animals and plants are life in the earthly realm. We know from the latter parts of the Bible that there is also life in the spirit realm. We read about angels and demons, spiritual beings who do not have a body in the visible earthly realm. It looks to me like man is the only creature in creation that God made to dwell in both realms at the same kind. Quite a privilege! It is also the reason why we are all so fascinated by the supernatural – we were created to walk in it! Everybody, even pure materialists who deny the existence of anything spiritual, loves Fantasy movies and stuff like that, and the supernatural powers and beings that appear in them. Why is that? It is because the human heart hungers for the supernatural, spiritual, heavenly life man was designed to live, even if the mind denies it. The fruit is obvious.

There is so much more to be said about what kind of life God designed for mankind (and why we don’t walk in it). But this post is getting too long now. Next time.

2012
01/16
CATEGORY
Part I - The Kingdom Prepared
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The Two Realms

The second aspect of God I want to talk about at the start of discussing his Kingdom is a very obvious one. Can you see God? No. (Let’s stick to plain simple human optical perception for now.) He is invisible. Neither is he “measurable” or perceptible with any of the natural senses. The reason is that he is Spirit (see John 4:24). I am highlighting this here because a lot of what relates to the Kingdom is invisible to the human eye. If we want to follow Jesus, we need to understand that we do not only follow an invisible person (which he is for most of us, in contrast to those who were walking with him 2000 years ago when he came in flesh and blood for the first time), but we also need to live by faith in an invisible reality.

Let’s see again the first words in the Bible: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” We must understand here, that “the heavens” does not mean the universe with its galaxies, stars or planets and all the other celestial bodies we see in the sky. Likewiese, “the earth” (or in other places in the Bible “the world”) does not necessarily always mean the planet on which we live in contrast to sun, moon, stars etc. The “heavens” and the “earth” in the Bible describe two different realms of creation. They are like two parallel universes, the “earth” being the one we perceive with our natural senses and are able to explore scientifically, and the “heavens” being a supernatural, spiritual dimension. Both are real, both consist of substantial matter, both exist at the same time and in the same place, and they are highly interdependent.

In the Book of Genesis, we see that God, after creating heavens and earth, (and creating light and separating it from darkness), makes a division between the realms: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and it divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven.” (Genesis 1:6-8) So the two realms, while coexisting, were separated. And as we read on through Genesis after that separation, we see that the focus is exclusively on the earthly realm: God divides water from dry land, creates celestial bodies, plants and all kinds of animals. There is no word about the heavenly realm anymore. Until man shows up. To be continued.

2012
01/06
CATEGORY
Part I - The Kingdom Prepared
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In the beginning God…

…those are the first words in the Bible. He was there before anything else, and his existence is eternal, it transcends time and space. He is the creator and originator of the universe. So, in the beginning, let’s talk about God. With the background of talking also about his Kingdom, there are two aspects of God I want to highlight.

The first aspect is God’s basic character. It is what is at the core of his heart.

“God is Love.” (John 4:8 and 16)

Now we know roughly what love is. There are things we love and things we don’t. There are people we love and there are people we don’t. We have a standard of judgement, and we use that to “determine” how much we love a person. If we love somebody depends on the person – we judge their background, their personality, their appearance etc. And according to our judgement we have love for some, for others not. If the person changes, our judgement of them changes, and likewise our love for them.

God is different. He does not merely know love, or have love, or “do” love . He IS love. That means, he loves you because of who he is, not because of who you are. Therefore you do not need to fulfill certain characteristics to be loved by him. You do not have to earn or deserve to be loved by God. He loves you because he is love. Since he stays the same forever, his love for you also stays the same forever. It does not change, even if you change, even if you do things that you think make you unloveable, they can not alter his love for you, because they can not alter his personality, and his personality is love. His love is unconditional, infinite and eternal.

Yes, God knows judgement, and God knows wrath. But they never change his love, and love is the motivation for him to execute righteous judgement and wrath to discipline those he loves when necessary. Whatever he does, even if he brings judgement, is rooted and motivated by an unchangeable eternal love, never by selfish or evil motives. There is nothing like that in him. He is completely pure, and so is his love – unstained by selfishness, evil or hurt. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5) God is the big constant in this universe, and so is his love. You can totally trust in and rely on God’s love. It is the one thing that will never change. We might often not see it like that, but that is not because there is something wrong with God or his love, but because our human and temporary perspective are too limited. Trust God to be who he says he is, trust him to be Love and to love you no matter what.

Since God is Love, the Kingdom of God is also built on love. Love is its foundation and its basic law (more about that much much later). Let’s keep that always in mind.

Enough for now, the other aspect of God I wanted to talk about comes next time.

2012
01/05
CATEGORY
Part I - The Kingdom Prepared
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Kingdom Basics

Again a long break since my last blog post. I was very busy finishing the demo recordings for two songs I have written and also spent a week being sick with a flu. Now, back to writing!

The Kingdom of God… God’s original idea how creation should function. A Kingdom prepared for mankind – and every living thing – to dwell in and enjoy its blessings. A place of eternal righteousness, peace and joy. As I wrote earlier (in the post “Seeking the Kingdom”), the Kingdom is often very contrary to the human way of thinking. Its ways, principles and values are not in line with the natural mind. We need to seek it to find it and understand it.

That is especially true for us who live in the so-called West. A problem that we have with kingdoms is that most of us here live in democracies. We abolished kingdoms decades and centuries ago. There are still some kings, but they have no real governmental authority. It was taken away from them and given to elected representatives of the people. So, we know how democracies function. We know about elections, votes, political campaigns, debates and discussions with the opposition. But we have absolutely no clue about real kingdoms. And especially not about the Kingdom of God.

Well, to make at least a small start towards understanding God’s kingdom, let us have a look at a “normal” earthly kingdom. A Kingdom…

  • is a form of government
  • is the area where a king rules
  • has borders
  • has laws or a constitution and a judicial system
  • has citizens (doh!)
  • has a language
  • has governmental and administrative organs and structures that regulate the affairs of its people (e.g. police, fire fighters, educational system, social services…)
  • has a currency and a financial system
  • has an army
  • has policies and procedures for citizenship, immigration – and also for expulsion!

Now, worldly kingdoms have all these things, and if we examine them, we will easily understand how they apply to a worldly kingdom. But the Kingdom of God is not of this world, so we can not just apply them the same way to the Kingdom of God as to a worldly kingdom. For example, the borders. A worldly kingdom has geographical borders. It is a country, covering a certain piece of land. How do we apply that to the Kingdom of God???

So, this list of features of a kingdom up there will help us in understanding what the features of the Kingdom of God are. However, in many cases, it will not help us in understanding how these features are. We need to gain that understanding from somewhere else. Where should we start?

It is usually good to start at the beginning. (There, I wrote it. Thank you, Captain Obvious!) As I have shown in my last post by quoting Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew (25:34), the Kingdom of God was prepared already before the foundation of the world. It was God’s original idea for life. So, if we look at the way how God laid the foundations of the world and designed creation and life in the first place, we will gain a lot of insight on the Kingdom. We can find that kind of stuff in the book of Genesis in the Bible. Let’s start with that next time then!

2011
12/20
CATEGORY
Part I - The Kingdom Prepared
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God’s Original Idea

Long time no post, finally taking the time again. First few posts were kind of introductiory, now I will slowly get to the actual topic, the “Kingdom of God”.

So, there is a Kingdom out there that has righteousness, peace and joy for its citizens, where Jesus is King, and that is not of this world, meaning it is a separate system that functions outside of the political, financial and religious power houses that run the world as we know it. Difficult to believe such a thing exists, for at least three reasons.

First of all, it would be too good to be true, with righteousness and peace for everybody, a wise King who runs the country in perfect integrity and loves his people without reservation, and all that. Well, many have dreamed about it, sure, so this is nothing new. They discarded this dream as impossible because it is beyond the capabilities of mankind. Well, I am not talking about mankind’s capabilities, because mankind is not in charge of that Kingdom. Now that would appear rather new.

Secondly, we also never heard about such a place – except in Sci-Fi and Fantasy stories that are mere imagination, or in religious stories shifting such a place to an unreachable point in whatever kind of afterlife. These stories are there and religion is as old as mankind can remember, again nothing new. But I am not talking about something imaginative, like an idea, concept, parable or state of mind. I talk about something actual, real, tangible – a new way of life by living under a new kind of government in a new kind of country. Kind of emigrating from this world, doable like right here and as of now (and without committing actual physical suicide as some cults believed). That might also appear rather new.

Third point, the person on which all that would depend, Jesus, is supposedly NOT a wise king of a good country, but the founder of a religion that is celebrated in special buildings on special days and occasions, and that has been one of the biggest power houses of this world for many centuries. Him suddenly NOT being the guy from the cheesy pictures with a sheep on his arm waiting for you in heaven somewhere out there, but actually being in control of the affairs of the universe setting up a very distinct Kingdom for mankind to live with him here on this earth (and of course also in heaven / afterlife etc.) sounds probably also rather new to most people. At least in our Western hemisphere and traditional churches.

Well, it might sound new… is it?

We could actually say, nope it is not new. It is exactly what Jesus was talking about most of the time two thousand years ago. The Kingdom here, the Kingdom there. All the parables – “the Kingdom of Heaven is like…”. His initial call for repentance – “repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand”. And many many more. So it is not new. It was just overlooked by at least a large part of the church for a very long time. But it goes one step further – the Kingdom is even much “older” than Jesus’ appearance on this planet.

There is this parable in Matthew 25 where Jesus describes himself as the Judge on the throne, judgeing between the “sheep” and the “goats”. And what does he say to the sheep? “Then the King will say to those on his right hand, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world‘.” (verse 34) “The foundation of the world.” It does not get older than that.

When the world was created, the Kingdom was already prepared. That means, it was in place, with a “fully functioning feature set”, ready to be entered by those who were supposed to inhabit it. Problem is, that did not happen. Mankind did not enter it. We chose to run our own kingdom(s). It is very obvious when you look around – this world that is run by mankind through politics, finances, religion etc. is NOT righteousness, peace and joy. Just check the news channels on TV. Until now, the largest part of mankind has not only no contact with the Kingdom or the King, but even no idea about it. But the good news is, God is still inviting us to enter and to experience true righteousness, peace and joy. We’ll see later how that works.

So, before I continue with how God prepared the kingdom for mankind in my next blog post, I will close this one with the following statement:

THE KINGDOM OF GOD WAS GOD’S ORIGINAL IDEA FOR LIFE FOR MANKIND THAT WE STILL MISS WHILE HE STILL OFFERS IT. IT IS MANKIND’S BIGGEST LOSS AND GREATEST OPPORTUNITY.

Including yours.

2011
12/06
CATEGORY
Part I - The Kingdom Prepared
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Seeking the Kingdom

I repeat once more the summary of my first blog post about who Jesus actually is (besides being God incarnate and all that):

Jesus is the secret king of a hidden and invisible kingdom where there is righteousness, peace and joy for everybody, that he establishes and expands already in this world as a counter-society to an evil and corrupt world system.

The counter-system Jesus is establishing is not like the world we know; its values and ways of doing things are completely different. They often collide with human logic and are opposite to our natural feelings. Jesus said: “My Kingdom is not of this world.” When we try to apply our human standards and principles to the Kingdom, we will miss it by far.

So, if the Kingdom is something mysterious to the human mind, then it does not come to us naturally or automatically; we need to seek it. We need to ask the right questions. Jesus was a master in telling parables and stories that would give hints and point people towards the Kingdom, but they would usually leave people with new or even more questions. Only those seeking and enquiring would actually find answers.

What then are the questions we could ask about a Kingdom that we can neither see nor understand? It could be questions like: Where is this Kingdom? Who is the King? Does it have borders? Does it have a constitution or laws? Does it have governmental and administrative structures? Does it have an economic or financial system? What about health care, retirement, unemployment? What kind of society does it have? What is its cultural expression? How do I enter this Kingdom? And how do I live in it?

The answers are out there, if you seek them.

2011
11/22
CATEGORY
Introduction
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The other 85%

Last post I tried to show that there is much more to Jesus than being the founder of a religion that has little or no relevance for every-day life in our secular Western world. But the Western world, as much as it enjoys thinking that it defines human life on the planet, makes up for only about 10-20% of world population. Face it, Westerners: You are just a minority and NOT the standard of the world. That thinking is arrogance. But I digress.

What about Jesus and the other 80-90% of mankind? Are you coming from the Non-Western world? Are you devoted to a certain religion or form of spirituality that is not (or at least not primarily) about Jesus? Then you might wonder: Is this Jesus of any interest for you? And is it maybe an offense against your God and your faith if you busy yourself with him?

Let me first of all say: Jesus was neither white nor Western. He was Asian, from the Middle East. His culture, his mentality, even the colour of his skin were not like those of us Europeans or Americans or Australians. So, if you are Asian, African or Latin American, you might have more in common with the culture that Jesus lived in than us Westerners. You do not need to adopt a Western life style, culture, mentality, or even dress code, to approach Jesus. Jesus is not limited to a certain culture.

Then there is the question: If I am already a devout follower of another religion, is Jesus relevant to my faith? Or is it even a transgression for me to find out more about him? The answer to this question is as manifold as the number of spiritual and religious backgrounds from which it can’t be asked. It is absolutely impossible to answer that here for everybody, but I will pick a few examples.

So, what for example about Islam? If you are Muslim, would studying the person and teachings of Jesus be of interest and lawful for you to do? If you have not read and studied the Quran for yourself yet, then I beg you, get one and check what I write now. The Arabic name of Jesus is Isa, and you will find him mentioned by that name a couple of times. And this is what is attributed to him (reference to Sura and Ayat in brackets):

  • Isa is the “Word of Allah” (3:45)
  • Isa was breathed into his mother’s womb of the Spirit of Allah (21:91)
  • Isa is a sign from Allah to all people (again 21:91)
  • Allah will make those who follow Isa superior to those who don’t on the Day of Judgement (3:55)
  • I quote the last words of Isa in Sura Al-Imran 3 Ayat 50: “I come unto you with a sign from your Lord, so keep your duty to Allah and obey me.”

These are just a few examples, but they all show it will not be unlawful for a Muslim to busy yourself with Isa. On the contrary, the Quran says it is your duty to Allah to obey Isa! How can you do that if you know nothing about him? On judgement day, according to the Quran, you will be better off if you follow Isa than if you don’t! Does that raise your interest in him? It sure should!

Another example… Hinduism. Are you looking for a way to remove your bad Karma from your life? Do you wonder if there is one special God who could actually help you to escape from your sins? The old Sanskrit versions of the Rig Veda, the oldest and holiest of the Hindu writings, contain a prophecy that is very remarkable. It says that one day, “Prajapati”, the “God of the People”, will come and walk the earth in the shape of a “large man”, “Purusha”. As this man, he will give his own body as a sacrifice for the sins of man so that no further sacrifices will be necessary. No more sacrifices necessary? How can that be? That can only mean that the sacrifice of Purusha was good enough to remove your bad Karma. Now you might wonder if Purusha was already there or when he will come so that you can find redemption from your sins. The Rig Veda has a list of ten distinctive characteristics that will mark Purusha, i only list a couple to make this not too long. Purusha will

  • be rejected by his own nation
  • have a plant of thorns placed upon his head
  • die on a tree that looks like a three-pointed spear (a cross!)
  • he will die without having his bones broken
  • he will return to life

Just a very superficial look into the Gospels will show that this is an absolutely accurate and identical description of Jesus, likewise with the other characteristics the Rig Veda mentions I didn’t cover. Could Jesus be Purusha and have your sins removed so you do not need to bring further sacrifice?

A last few words to those who come from an esoteric background, New Age etc. You are probably interested in the spiritual because you seek higher wisdom, supernatural power, access to a realm beyond the visible. Jesus lived constantly in this realm, he healed people and even raised them to life, he prophesied with an unmatched accuracy on a personal and a global scale. You will never find more power or wisdom or presence of the supernatural than in the life of Jesus. The Bible describes him as “light” and “truth”. If you are seeking for these things, Jesus might be just exactly what you were looking for all the time!

I could go on and on and on with this topic… but by now, I hope that these few examples (and those from the last post) have raised your interest and shown you that the relevance of Jesus is not limited to one culture, language, geographic region, and not even to one faith. He shows up just everywhere, but often just as a slight hint. Why don’t you start today to find out more about him? Best thing you can do is to lock yourself somewhere where you are undisturbed and start talking to him and ask him to get personal with you. Or you can hang out with people who know and follow him and ask them to lead you to him.

And, you can continue to follow this blog. I have much more stuff coming up about Jesus, about the Kingdom he talked about, and also about another mysterious and wonderful thing: His dwelling place that he builds on the earth, together with his Kingdom, right now, while we do not recognize it much. Stay tuned. :-)

2011
11/20
CATEGORY
Introduction
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What does that have to do with me?

In my first bog post I finished with the observation that most people might wonder if Jesus is of any relevance to them. What does he have to do with my actual life? Well, here is a summary of what I wrote in my last post:

Jesus is the secret king of a hidden and invisible kingdom where there is righteousness, peace and joy for everybody, that he establishes and expands already in this world as a counter-society to an evil and corrupt world system.

Does that sound relevant? If you ever had the feeling that something is wrong with the world as we know it (and you do have that feeling, don’t you), and you find righteousness, peace and joy for mankind something desirable (and you do desire that at least for yourself and your love ones, don’t you), and somehow you wonder if society could ever be changed, then I think it sounds indeed quite relevant.

But the problem is this: This is a Jesus that you have never heard about. Let me give you a summary of the Jesus I had heard about throughout the first half of my life, and that probably reflects what most people think:

Jesus is the founder of Christianity, an institutional religion that celebrates boring rituals in meaningless services in cold buildings once a week, while trying to promote outdated rules and traditions.

It can’t get much more irrelevant than this, at least it couldn’t for me. But funnily, it just takes a short look into the Bible without seeing through the lens of about two millennia of church history, and you find the “secret king version” all over it, and none of the other stuff. To hopefully make you a bit more curious, here are a few “fun facts” about Jesus that confirm this statement:

- In the whole of the four Gospels, the narratives of Jesus’s life, he mentions only twice the word “church”, but he speaks about the “Kingdom of God” or the “Kingdom of Heaven” all the time.

- Even the Greek term that you find in these two passages for “church” in the original text is “ecclesia”, and that is not a religious, but a political term. It comes from the decision-making and voting system of ancient Greece’s early democracies, and has nothing to do with what we understand as “church”.

- Jesus spoke more (if you count the verses) about work and finances than about heaven and hell.

- Jesus did not leave one single instruction on how to perform a Sunday mass of any kind.

- Jesus taught more often over dinner in people’s houses than in the synagogues.

- Jesus was executed as a blasphemer and criminal with pretty much only two friends (John and Mary Magdalene) and his mother being there (apart from the crowd that mocked him). He did not leave any organization or institution behind that he would ever have founded in his lifetime.

So, was that enough to make you curious? I hope so. Next time, I will address the question what relevance Jesus has for you if you are coming from a faith that is not (at least not primarily) linked to Jesus, and if it would be an affront against your faith to dig deeper into this whole Jesus and Kingdom story.

2011
11/17
CATEGORY
Introduction
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Imagine…

Imagine somebody came to the place where you live and work and would do outrageous things that lack any natural explanation. He would heal people that are sick of sometimes even incurable diseases, cast out evil spirits like in a horror movie, produce food and money out of nothing or from the weirdest and most impossible sources, and even control the weather. Masses come to see him and run after him. He tells people not only their future accurately, but confronts them with the secrets of their heart as if he knew everything.

Now imagine that that person would not only do such outrageous things, but also teach a way of life and values that are completely revolutionary, completely opposite to the greed and fear that control the current society. They would be liberating, inspiring, empowering, enlivening, and would lead, if applied, to a society of righteousness, peace and joy for everybody. More importantly, he would not only promote these values, but also demonstrate them in perfect integrity and prove his unconditional love through great sacrifice.

Imagine further that that person would introduce himself as a secret king of a hidden country. The governmental and administrative systems of his kingdom – the legal, financial, educational, health care and social security systems – would be so ingenious that injustice and poverty simply would not exist. The king himself would make sure that his devoted service to his people and his ability to change hearts inspire and empower everybody to live in accordance with the values and laws of the kingdom, so that there is indeed righteousness, peace and joy for every single citizen. Neighbors would live in peace, families in love, different generations in respect and dignity, and the two genders in mutual appreciation and esteem.

Imagine finally that the king would invite everybody to come to his country and become a citizen of his kingdom, so that they could escape the suffering and destruction that mankind would eventually bring upon itself in its corrupt and evil world order. To top it all, he would not only give citizenship to all who come and give their allegiance to the king and his country, but even adopt them into the royal household so that they could share the privileges and responsibility of his government with him.

Imagine… “Well, sounds nice, but could, should, would… this has never happened and never will, because neither such a person nor such a place exist.” So you might have declined already and written the whole story off. But you must admit, many people dream about such a thing. A magic kingdom where the supernatural is possible, and a wise and righteous king watches over peace and justice. Honestly, wouldn’t it be great to live in Gondor when Aragorn is King – I mean after Sauron has been destroyed and the whole mess with the rings is over? But hey, that’s just fantasy, and again, in the real world, no such person or place exist, right? Well, let me tell you: There is something you don’t know yet. Because such a person and country do indeed exist, and what I described above has already happened. That person is Jesus, and his country is the “Kingdom of Heaven” or the “Kingdom of God”.

Okay, I mentioned Jesus, that is of course the next opportunity to decline. Was he not a religious figure? Was he not the founder of Christianity? Is this “Kingdom of Heaven”, if it exists at all, not a place you have to wait for until afterlife? That is something for in church, but it has nothing to do with real life, has it? I am not a religious person, so how can this Jesus have any relevance for me?

Or maybe you are religious, and you are even very devoted to your God, and you come from a faith like Islam, Hinduism, etc. Can Jesus be relevant to you, or does exploring him and his teachings even constitute an affront against your God and your faith? That is a serious question!

But since this blog post is already quite long, I’ll get to that question of relevance next time, so if you are interested enough to find out more, you should come back here! I have a few “fun facts” ready about Jesus that might surprise you!

2011
11/12
CATEGORY
Introduction
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