17 years, 1297 posts later

I know - yet another anniversary/ Yes, it's a sign of ageing - marking out the passing years but I must mark it's 17 years since 18/19 November 2007 when I began writing this blog. My son, Rob, urged me to jump onto this relatively new social media platform back then. With hesitation and nervousness, I doubted anything I wrote would genuinely interest other people. 

Of course, my life back then in the US was action-packed. My first post crammed three different events into in a few lines. I had been to a fascinating science lecture at Fermilab - a large research facility nearby. I recounted how the lecturer breathlessly tackled the subject of missing mass and energy in the universe How little we know - about 5% apparently. I made a Christian comment (that frequently happens!) before marvelling at our grandchild (18 months old). And I also managed in this first post to describe my visit  to Christ Community Church in the centre of Zion - a Christian community founded by a visionary preacher John Alexander Dowie who sought to shape whole town living out Kingdom of God principles. How extraordinary.to be in his study and see the fruit of his labours.

I managed 15 posts in the few weeks left in 2007. Such was my keenness and my level of interaction with church, students, and life around that words flowed. It seemed easy to post something mildly interesting. Now, 17 years later, to state the obvious, so much less happens in my life. In my eightieth year the sparseness and thinness of irregular posts is starkly evident.

I have no way of checking the accuracy of google data that accompanies my blog. Frankly I find it unlikely yet it's on the record. Over 17 years there have been 1297 posts; in the last 3 months 4.550 hits; last 12 months 62,000 hits. Leading countries are, in order of hits: Hong Kong, US, Singapore, UK, Canada, India, Germany, China.  A world map with shaded areas shows the spread of these hits.  How surprising is this. I guess my books which were translated in Cantonese and printed separately in India have something to do with this spread.

But it's barely credible. I am stunned and grateful. Some of you have doggedly held on. Thank you dear faithful readers. Thank you to everyone who has ever troubled to give me a hit! Maybe I ought to keep going a bit longer. 

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60 years on lunch

That was what it was called - 60 years on lunch. It happened yesterday when students who matriculated (began) life at Jesus College, Cambridge in 1964 were invited back to celebrate. In anticipation we were sent a dress code (no gowns required) plus a list of attendees. I wondered how many of us in hovering in our early eighties would assemble to hobble up the massive flight of stairs to the upper hall. The list had 25 names plus many spouses. Carol's name was down but her declining health meant a late sad apology.

I know I have posted before about meeting old college friends. This was the best occasion of them all. Why? Partly because we were so happy to recognize one another and reminisce. Genuinely delighted. Several remembered me primarily as an artist (!) with memories exaggerated by passing years. True, my easel and oil painting dominated my room and my exhibiting and even selling paintings were part of youthful chutzpah. I read geography, specializing in geomorphology, and the two fellow geography students independently commented that I was probably more into art than geography. One of them was a double blue playing against Oxford in cricket and football so sport loomed large in his life.  But as we shared stories and caught up with careers etc. there was a liberating positivity. It was joyful.

Partly because the food was splendid. Apparently there's a new chef, and over 2 and half hours we were feted with tasty, substantial courses which even I appreciated.  I say 'even I' because my usual diet closely follows Carol's necessary dairy free simple tastes. This was anything but simple. At the end the Master, Ms. Sonita Alleyne - the first black woman appointed Master to a Cambridge college (and yes Master is the correct address) - began with heartfelt gratitude for the meal. 'What a really great meal!' she said with such genuine enthusiasm.  From the heart. We all agreed!

And that was the third important reason. She urged us to reflect on the wonder of being alive and together, beginning with a description of the world in 1964 and in all the changes since over these intervening years we could meet with a collegiality, forged by those years in community and of such quality it still held value 60 years on. It was a secular message but it had immense spiritual resonance. Yes, I needed to say 'Thank you Lord for all this early life experience with these friends. Help me be positive and grateful as I look back and see your hand guiding all the way along'.

Compound Interest

This week we were joyfully surprised by a train visit from our London family - three of them because the older two grandsons are involved in PhD work and Uni. Our thirteen year old was therefore widely open as his grandfather pursued conversation. I reveled in this and I think he didn't mind too much (though he is very polite and thoughtful).  

Much talk revolved around his life at school.  He showed me his smart phone with the school app which keeps in  hourly contact with him. To my mind, absurd expectations from teachers are constantly demanded.  One section of the app 'Teams' involves direct links with teachers whose relationship not only involves setting mounds of work and marking results but sharing conversation if required. What was daunting was the mountain of material facing him this half term.  On the train he had been immersed in preparation for a physics test immediately on his return and several other subjects demand heavy attention.  However his food technology course has provided tasty outcomes for his family with his latest task making pizza and formulating his own pizza recipe. 

He was passionate about how AI was changing so much and, in his opinion for the worse. 'One day I reckon all teaching will be done by AI with one human monitoring results behind the scene'.

Late afternoon he volunteered to get the Chinese meal with me from the take-away.  I had given him a little money (I call it a holiday Beano fund) and I chatted about whether he had spent any in Cambridge in the afternoon. I hoped he had treated himself to something. He then solemnly told me about his approach to spending: 'When I'm in the shops', he said,' I do see things that I really like. Really like. And then I think do I really want them enough to buy them. No. It's important to realize that if you are careful and save, compound interest can add up.  It may seem small but over time it can add up.'

I congratulated him. ' I have a very wise grandson' I replied.  It's so good to talk to the next, next generation!

Gym learnings

When I was preaching regularly in the US my gym visits occasionally emerged in sermons. (How surprising say those who know me well!) 

Of course there is the obvious link between running the race of Christian discipleship with the disciplines needed. The apostle Paul makes much of this in 1 Cor. 9:24-27 - 'Therefore as a man I do not run aimlessly' v26. One memorable day I learned, with much embarrassment, how I was exercising aimlessly. I enjoyed (sort of) using the lateral weights equipment. Sitting on a bench with the weights above my head, I had to insert the holding pin to calibrate the weight load I was going to pull. I began pulling down 50 pounds in a suggested pattern of  three sequences of 12 lateral pulls. The first 12 was a doddle but with repetition muscles began protesting. Over the years I gradually built up the number of pounds, keeping a little notebook as a record (which I gather is a rather masculine trait). As I built up to 120 pounds I confess a certain measure of pride.  

Until a fitness trainer came by. Gently, because he was explaining to a paying customer whom he didn't want to correct (much) he said that my posture was hopeless as was my breathing and most importantly I was failing to pull down the weights far enough and slowly enough. 'I'm afraid it's not doing you much good' he said. Good grief. Proud snatching notched up success in my notebook but it totally lost its effectiveness. It wasn't too difficult in a sermon application to relate this to patterns of daily devotion that are too often snatched in routines that fail to give weight and wonder to the practice of talking and listening to the heavenly Father, who sees us in secret (Matt 6.6). Yes, it challenged my prayer habits.

Something else happened on the lateral weights machine too. Several machines were lined up alongside each other. Chosen weights could go up really high. I remember an empty machine next to me had a 250 plus setting from some previous muscle bound user.  Phew!  While I plonked weights up and down two teenage girls came by chatting away, chewing gum and, truth be told, not looking too athletic. One girl sat at this machine, so engrossed in talking to her friend that she didn't appear to check the high setting. Certainly she didn't change it. I looked on with concern which turned to wonderment. Effortlessly, still talking and chewing she began lifting this huge weight up and down.  And yes, you know the application.  Who are we ever to judge another? (Matt 7:1) . 

One of you wrote to me with details of his twice-a-week online training programme. In honesty, I wonder about my next steps!

I lasted 23 years!

Forgive me adding another personal note to these oddly varied postings but this week has proved significant in my life. It's not a large milestone but it's something.

Way back in 2001 at my first annual medical checkup in the USA my doctor warned that one of my blood stats revealed a disturbing lack of fitness. 'What exercise do you do?', he asked. I couldn't  escape this direct question.  'Very little' I replied. Living on campus both in London, and for my new job in Chicago meant a very few steps between work and home. Sedentary was a polite description. And, of course, in the US the car was necessary at all other times.

This honesty led to my doctor's diktat that to avoid imminent diabetes, stroke, heart attack etc. I should join a gym immediately. Joining a gym was an utterly alien thought.  But it so happened that a local gym was advertising an open week with reduced joining fees. Was that a sign? Carol, my long-suffering life-long partner agreed to join me in an exploratory visit.  A breezy overview was almost attractive. I saw a few people my age and shape who seemed to be breathing normally. 

In my public ministry I had strongly advocated the Christian challenge to steward our health - body, mind and spirit - in order to be the best we could be for the Lord.  I recall speaking to a Pastor's Stream at Spring Harvest about the need to discipline body, mind and spirit. (I confess that afterwards Carol called me out for being more than slightly hypocritical!)  

So when we signed up for our initiation session I responded responsibly as an energetic fitness trainer introduced us to basic machines and outlined the kind of programme we could safely follow. Thus began a routine that, at different gyms following each house move, has been a regular feature of weekly life. But this October 17th marks the end of 23 years  My annual subscription expires and the reality has hit me that my attendance record this past year has been appalling. I can justifiably claim that my inability to walk more than a few steps these last months plus my general ageing malaise have contributed to my absences.  

However, the truth is that my fitness ambitions have shriveled.  Hopefully I shall keep active in other more modest ways but it really does feel like the end of an era.  Even as I write this I know I am on a slippery slope. Undoubtedly my hard currency subscription disciplined me.  Will I be able to summons up discipline in the new era? I wonder.

Spurgeon's legacy

One reason why I love older books is their zeal and seriousness - especially about preaching. As patient readers of this blog will know I am desperately concerned about the often low state of contemporary preaching when it seems there is little expectation that God can change people through his preached word.  Really transform. Fullerton's book 'Souls of Men' begins by asking how the famous preacher CH. Spurgeon should be best remembered. By his church, college, orphanage, his writing, his preaching? Of course, in 1928 with Fullerton a good friend, and memories of the great preacher alive, people were constantly asking him about Spurgeon. In particular, ministers asked him whether the same kind of preaching would work at other times and produce similar results. Could Fullerton sum up the lasting legacy of this great man? Yes he could in nine words.

At length, on awakening one morning, it came to me as if spoken by the very voice of God: 'His testimony to the converting power of the gospel.'  The conversion of his hearers was the constant aim of his ministry, and therefore the constant result of it. The word 'therefore' is not used thoughtlessly. When his first student Medhurst complained that he was not having conversions Spurgeon said; 'But you do not expect conversions every time  you preach, do you? 'Oh, no, of course not!' 'And that is why you do not have them!'.....And in another conversation Spurgeon said that he did not mean the word 'expect' in a sense that he was guaranteeing conversion but he hoped it would be so....He expected it because he loved the people, because he believed they needed to be converted, and because he knew that the Gospel is 'the power of God to salvation to everyone that believes.'

He then quotes a conversation Timothy Richard (missionary to China) had in Shanghai with a man who, thinking of Spurgeon's impact, asked: 'Did you ever know a man's whole life to be changed by simply listening to a preacher for half an hour? ' That was the miracle that happened thousands of times in Spurgeon's Tabernacle.

The question that concerns Fullerton is strongly stated : 'Why does it not happen oftener today? He challenges that we need :

• a greater sense of the realism of conversion - conversion from sin. Sin must become exceeding sinful and not regarded as the almost excusable lapse of a too pliant nature. 
• a great passion for others' souls. We need to feel. Nothing great in the world is ever accomplished without passion, and this greatest of all vocations will need it the most.
• deep sympathy and deep love. In this divine task if I have not love I am nothing.
• make it your business. You will win souls if you make it your business to win them.  

I reckon that's a nugget to treasure from an old book!

 

A book, a hymn

I have posted before about the painful process of saying goodbye to my library. The ordeal is largely over but I still have a number of old volumes which have little interest to others. Before I recycle them I am looking for nuggets and triggers. Many are brown and mottled yet I continue to ask whether they might contain treasures?  Right now, open in front of me, is a 1928 book discarded from Spurgeon's College Library with the un-PC title: Souls of Men. A bookplate declares it actually came from the library of its author - W.Y. Fullerton.

W.Y. Fullerton (1857-1932) was a Baptist evangelist, writer, hymn writer and leader in the UK.  C.H. Spurgeon - the Prince of Preachers - became a friend and one of Fullerton's many books was a biography of Spurgeon (with that title).  Though inevitably dated his writing style had sparkle, energizing his prose by lively stories and quotes.

I'll come to the book in a minute but I must first mention one of his hymns that is a clear favourite of mine.  In my local church I have been able to conclude some of my preaching services with it. The music leader noticed: 'You really like this one.'  And I do.  I love it's radiant faith that really tells out the gospel with full-blooded conviction. Yet this confidence in Christ is set within a necessary wider context.  Set to the tune Londonderry each verse begins with the line: I cannot tell.  It brings realism to Christian faith.  

Verse 1 focuses on the incarnation. Why Christmas. Why did God choose to send Jesus as a baby? I cannot tell why he, whom angels worship, should set his love  upon the sons of men

Verse 2 concentrates on the suffering of the cross. :I cannot tell how silently he suffered.

Verse 3 centres on the universal mission of the Kingdom of God. I cannot tell how he will win the nations.

Verse 4 focuses on the consummation of the Kingdom: I cannot tell how all the lands shall worship.

Every time it honestly expresses how the ways of God are way beyond human thinking. How much we just cannot tell.  Revelation asks for intelligent faith but won't give comprehensive explanations. When Jesus tells us to pray he doesn't explain how it works. Rather he asks if we have a room with a door and tells us to go in, shut the door, and DO IT. 

Wonderfully, and the music helps, each admission of ignorance I cannot tell is answered by a fifth line BUT THIS I KNOW.  Oh the joy of praising God. But this I know, that he was born of Mary. But this I know, he heals the broken-hearted. But this is know all flesh shall see his glory But this I know, the skies will thrill with rapture.

I may well choose it for my funeral when non-believers will be present because it expresses the balance of heartfelt faith which firmly holds on to Jesus because he holds on to us.  Yes, I'll come to the book next but this hymn is worth a post!.