Actor Waldemar Torenstra on his belief in Farewell God?

In the monastery

You have made a remarkable choice. I think most boys aged 16 or 16 are mostly after girls,” presenter Tijs van de Brink strikes up a conversation with Torenstra. The actor in question decided at this age to enter a monastery for three weeks. ”Fortunately I was also after the girls”, laughs Waldemar, but because he had to do an ideal internship since school, he chose this place. ”A monastery, I really didn’t understand that. You retire from life to consecrate yourself, which is apparently very important.” This made Waldemar very curious and he retired to the woods of Doetinchem. “During the day, we hardly spoke and you went to mass five times a day. In the end, I understood why you would make such a choice.”

Big change

While his father had always been a “hippie” and was mainly interested in Buddhism and Hinduism, he suddenly decided to become a priest in a free Christian community. The search for religiosity therefore connects us. I also think I’m just a product of my upbringing.” Waldemar was 9 years old when his father made this choice. “I had never been to church and so I had to go every two weeks! It was a big change and I didn’t find it easy at all. But I think that’s why I’ve always been occupied with ‘what is faith’?

Shaped and damaged

Waldemar thinks his father has always searched. “Why we live and what we do here. The transition to the priesthood had many consequences. “We were suddenly a priestly family and we had to behave a bit properly. Despite the fact that the congregation was so free. You sensed people’s stares.” Waldemar had no idea what he was to encounter. “Learn things from the Bible okay, but what does it mean when someone comes to talk to you? Do you also have to talk about God in a certain way?” Every few years there was also a move. At one point the family would even go to New Zealand. My brother and I went crazy. The compromise then was to live in Leeuwarden. I thought that was terrible too.’ actor thinks everyone is damaged and formed in their youth.” How can I look back? I’m still trying to adapt to the main currents of life that I’m facing. These different forms have taught me a lot but damaged me too.”

father figure

”Did you think that God existed?” asks Tijs. “When my dad became a priest, it suddenly became a Christian god that we believed in. I’ve always had a problem with this God that he’s such a father figure in the Bible.”

Waldemar’s sister might also complain about all the changes. She preferred the man in the red velvet suit in the open car with a joint in his mouth than the man in the robe at the altar. I don’t have that, because I also thought it was really great that you could make such a choice.” It was precisely the confrontation with the Christian faith that he found difficult. “In the Church community, I have always felt a kind of dilution. A form in which I did not feel as free as they said. I found that to be a difficult part of this God.”

Form published

“I experienced God more as a controller than a liberator,” Waldemar continues. “I think it was mainly because of the appearance of people in the congregation.” He has now completely abandoned the definition of God. “I no longer feel the need to define that. I don’t know if God is a female or a male organ. I don’t know where it turns out. I don’t know and I don’t feel the need to fix it in some form of “belief”. I experience something spiritual in nature, in rituals, in being with people and, for example, laughing or crying with each other and that’s a good thing.” The actor thinks that there is also an energetic world in addition to the physical world. . “A spiritual reality in which a divine identity works. I kind of said goodbye to the Christian god in the formal sense. But not spiritual reality. Think of words like compassion, compassion and love that relate to me.’ ‘Does that make you a better person?’, Tijs wonders again. “It makes me happier,” Torenstra says with a smile.