1,655 Years of Fascinating History

Dr Andrew Milnthorpe and I boarded a train at our home station in Bracknell for London specifically to visit the London Transport Museum, as trains, in particular, are his speciality. Taking after his father, who can give the name to any insignificant-looking carriage used so nonchalantly by both daily commuters and leisure travellers alike, along with locomotives of both past and present, their love of trains certainly runs in the family.

Therefore, during a chance meeting with Andrew at our local swimming pool - he was about to begin his swimming session just as I finished mine, I suggested visiting the Transport Museum during the following Bank Holiday weekend, after asking me if there's anywhere we can go to together. I watched as his countenance breaking into joy at my suggestion. I knew that I have struck the right note.

And so we spent a good part of the day together at the London Transport Museum, where displays of maps of the developing railway network around London was of greater interest than the trains themselves, although sitting inside an antiquated carriage was intriguing in itself, even if the carriage did not pull out, as my subconscious was expecting, to begin its journey. 

Victorian ladies cabin, London Transport Museum.

The London Transport Museum was by no means the only museum we have visited. Andrew, Alex and I have also visited the British Museum in Bloomsbury, and also the two Natural History Museums, the famous one in South Kensington and the smaller one in Oxford. We also spent a few hours at the Science Museum, next door to the Natural History in London, and some time in the Museum of London located at the redeveloped Barbican district. Just to add here that some years ago, Alex and I spent the day at the Victoria & Albert Museum, also in South Kensington.

So really, what is the museum all about? Isn't it a collection of artefacts made by humans going back thousands of years? And this includes the development of technology, so featured in both the Science Museum and the London Transport Museum. It's all educational, allowing the student to learn something without the keen eye of the teacher wielding a cane, therefore, the museum is often the venue for school trips, at times seen as a treat, instead of being confined to a classroom.

Of course, the collection can be very interesting, intriguing even, or it could be downright boring. It really all depends on individual interest. As for me, I can gaze at a map of the London railway network as it was before the War, for quite a long time, while someone else would walk straight past it, and go for the Victorian ladies dress and men's fashion for that period - the kind of exhibit I would have walked straight past as I ponder on the former possibility for a train to travel from Southampton to Dover via London Waterloo without the need to reverse!

As for Natural History, going by what I have seen over the years, this seems to enjoy universal popularity. Add a computer to the exhibit where the public can play an educational game, and I have seen queues of families with their kids all waiting to have their turn on the computer. As for me, I had my time on these computers, especially in the Natural History Museum in London. All I had to do was turn up during a normal working day during school term, and most of the computers were free and waiting for the next participant. Back then, I even tested the integrity of one device by teasingly pressing the same key when various questions were presented. When a text akin to the words:

You are just messing around. Leave, and let the next person play the game...

appeared, indeed, I felt rebuked, thus demonstrating the programmer's foresight of those who just want to mess around and will not take their learning more seriously.

Perhaps I may have had a point about my messing around. It was in the Evolution gallery, where at that time the statue of Charles Darwin dominated from one corner before it was moved to its present site, which now dominates the cathedral-like main gallery. The computer game was that of Natural Selection demonstrated on two groups of mice, one group dark-skinned the other group light. With the elimination of one group living in an unsuitable environment and thus subject to predation, if anything, this seems to go against evolution rather than support it.

However, it was only last year, accompanied by Alex and Andrew, when, on one sunny Bank Holiday Monday, we visited the Oxford Museum of Natural History. No computers here, nor Darwin's statue, this was an excellent collection of animal skeletons, both extinct and living species. Alongside were displays of fossil marine life, stretching from the Cambrian to more recent periods.

Fossils are fascinating, to me at least. This is where such a vivid demonstration of Noah's Flood is so fervently displayed. These are all features of suffering and death and seems so unlike that of an evolutionary scale where suffering and death are seen as a necessity in organism development. As more and more fossils are discovered, including those of species never seen before, I get the impression that God is trying to tell us something, yet we don't want to hear it, but instead deliberately stick our fingers in our ears to ensure that the truth never settles in our minds.

If only, yes, if only...

If only a bed containing mixed fossils were discovered. Here I'm referring to the Cambrian Trilobite, a fossil of a Coelacanth (a living fossil), several skeletons of Dinosaurs including a Plesiosaur, a Triceratops and a Tyrannosaur. And on the same rock strata and quite nearby, or better still, partially superimposed on the other skeletons, is that of a horse, a domestic cat, and a couple of fully-evolved modern humans. And in the hand of one of the human skeletons, there appears to be what looks like some kind of scientific wizardry, a gadget which features a delicately-cut crystal. And the tail of the trilobite is actually resting on the gadget! What a sensation such a find would bring! Indeed, the whole of the academic world would be left shattered!

Actually, according to one source,* a fossil trail of both dinosaur and human footprints, along with raindrop splash marks, have already been discovered on an ancient Paluxy River bed, near Glen Rose Texas, the rock on which those tracks were found were from the Cretaceous Period, some 100,000,000 years old, the preservation of such footprints indicating a rapid change of the environment enabling such prints to remain preserved. Furthermore, on sites stretching from Virginia and Pennsylvania, through Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and westwards towards the Rocky Mountains, what appears to be human footprints have been found in rocks of the Paleozoic Era (which includes the Devonian and Silurian rock strata) supposedly to be around 250,000,000 years old!

Paluxy River bed, Texas.

The Paluxy River has also revealed giant human footprints, an astonishing phenomenon which suggests the existence of the Nephilim, or giants, of Genesis 6:4. Very similar giant footprints have been found also in Arizona, and near Mt Whitney in California.

 Human footprints testify of "giants in the earth in those days."

It was 1970s geologist Albert C. Ingalls who wrote, concerning these finds:

If man, or even his ape ancestor, or even that ape ancestor's early mammalian ancestor, existed as far back as in the Carboniferous Period in any shape, then the whole science of geology is so completely wrong that all of the geologists will resign their jobs and take up truck driving. Hence for the present at least, science rejects the attractive explanation that man made these mysterious prints in the mud of the Carboniferous Period with his feet.**

Science has rejected these finds as fake news, whether the footprints were made by some undiscovered reptilian species, or whether the human or dinosaur footprints were some elaborate carving, or even if the mud surrounding the human footprint had collapsed into a print made by some other animal and partially filled to form a human print. What I find amazing is how respected scientists would go to extreme lengths to deny the truthfulness of the Biblical record!

I find this so sad. Much of that was because of the Lord himself, back in 1973, gave me the option either to believe the Scriptural record or believe in evolution, with no in-betweens. Without hesitation, I chose the former. But since then, I have developed a fascination with the first 1,655 years of human history within the Scriptural frame. That is the time from the creation of our first parents to the Flood of Noah, the antediluvian world.

What was my present home location like as before the Flood? Was it a jungle inhabited by a wide diversity of species, including dinosaurs? Could my part of the world lay below the antediluvian sea, with great beasts such as the ichthyosaur and the long-necked plesiosaur gliding overhead through the primaeval ocean? Or could my area have been part of a city with highly-developed communication systems and technology? It's this last bit which I find so elusive. As one archaeologist once wrote:

The ancient Egyptians must have had wireless. We've been digging here for years and we have not found a single wire.

This is a referral against Erich von Daniken's book Chariots of the Gods? which this writer advocated the invasion of a super space-civilization to our planet around 40,000 years ago, who then tinkered with the DNA of a group of apes to kick-start their evolution towards homo sapiens. I have read the book after I was lent to me by a work colleague in 1975 after he was convinced that the visions the prophet Ezekiel saw was actually a helicopter, and the tabernacle Moses had built was a gigantic radio transmitter!

I never took Erich von Daniken with any seriousness in the way my friend did, but by reading in the Bible about the tremendous longevity these pre-Flood people lived, which is not far below a thousand years, I can imagine how rapid they may have gained scientific knowledge over the course of time, and may even lay down the foundations of the fabulous Atlantis of Plato's fables. Therefore, I find it a pity that no evidence of such advanced civilisation has never been unearthed, or for that matter, discovered deep under the ocean. Considering how wicked the antediluvians were, it comes to me as no surprise that the bodies of every human being were sucked down to the depths of the ocean and destroyed altogether, and every artefact and every building were atomised in the violent torrents of the floodwaters.

But how the landscape might have looked, and how tremendously beautiful the land might have been, I can only imagine, along with a global tropical climate under constantly cloudless skies, with the brilliant multitude of stars shining by night. And all that despite that the ground was cursed because of the entrance of sin.

Fantasy image of the sunken Atlantis.

And yet, it was by no means a safe place to live. Life was made very cheap. Also, an extraordinary phenomenon was taking place at the time. The angelic sons of God were abandoning their place in heaven to marry the beautiful daughters of men (Genesis 6:1-4). The robbing of the wives from their human husbands might have stirred horrific violence from jealousy, rage and hatred. As a result of such an unholy union, babies with only half-human genome were born and grew up to be giants, famous men, men of renown. These guys were unredeemable, not having a full human DNA from both human father and mother. Unless the Flood came, the Messianic Line from Adam to Christ could have been ineffective or severed, having been polluted with a non-human genome.

Other than destroying a wicked, corrupt human race, the Flood played its role in the redemption of mankind by preserving the Messianic Line from genetic contamination. After the Flood, this angelic-human copulation was no longer permitted by God, thus demonstrating yet again God's love for us and his willingness to save everyone who comes to Christ through faith. 

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*John C. Whitcombe Jr and Henry M. Morris, The Genesis Flood, Baker, 1969, 1975.

**Albert C. Ingalls "The Carboniferous Mystery" vol. 162, Scientific American, January 1940, p.14, and quoted in the above book.

A Grueling, Fiery Stairway to Heaven?

Nachi Falls in southwest Japan is 133 metres high, making it the highest waterfall in the country. It tumbles down a forested cliff, giving the area a stunningly dramatical setting. Near its top, there is a villa of temples, making this area a centre of the Shinto faith. Alongside the waterfall, there is a 600-metre long stairway where once a year, a group of pilgrims has to ascend and descend the whole length of the stairway until the leader declares the stairway cleansed from any spiritual contamination which might have polluted it. 

Nachi Falls, Japan.

Pantheism is the central belief of the Shinto faith. That is, every object has a divine spirit, known as a Kami, whether it be a tree, a rock, or for this case a waterfall. And because of this particular cascade is the tallest in Japan, it's believed that this very work of nature has the chief of all Kami. Give this divinity what it asks for and the prosperity for the whole of Japan is guaranteed.

And so this young man, in his twenties and holding down a job as a Government clerk, each year he joins a group of pilgrims, each carrying a massive torch made of burning wood, up along the stairway and back, until the route is cleansed from all impurity. Each torchbearer has an assistant who walks alongside to keep the burning wood under control, using water if necessary. To add to all this, each torch is huge and heavy, nearly the weight of the carrier himself. Although the young man is fit and strong, after five round trips he begins to tire. For a brief moment, he is allowed to hand the huge torch to his assistant, but must take it up again and continue with his journey.

Five rounds, or return trips, of the pilgrimage, would have taken him 6,000 metres, but then the priest still hadn't declared the stairway cleansed. How many more rounds the lad has to do before such a welcoming message reaches his ears, we were not told. But I would not be too surprised that he could have covered as much as 10,800 metres, which is over six miles in nine return trips. It may or may not have been that long. Or it could have been even longer. It was all up to the discretion of the priest, who could vary the length of the pilgrimage year by year. At last, when the stairway is finally declared to be purified, an offering of Kami and thanksgiving is made to the waterfall, and Japan can be guaranteed another year of peace and prosperity.

At another location, this time, in the African State of Mali, the city of Djenne boasts one of the largest mosques in the world, which is built of mud. Therefore, after the annual rainy season, everyone on the town volunteers to facelift the whole edifice by applying fresh mud, which must be kept wet with a constant supply of water, over the entire building (with the supplying of the water done by the women.) The roof with its towering minarets must be given special attention. A special place in Heaven is reserved for whoever reaches the pinnacle of the tallest minaret, and so, before dawn, a group of young men literally race to climb the turret. The first to get to the top can begin his duty with a sense of triumph. One participant has run, climbed and won the race over and over again for the last few years. The promise of Paradise is held to him for another year.

However, everyone who contributes to the project will have a place in Paradise. Therefore it's of no surprise that everyone able does his bit. Normally the entire annual facelift is completed in a day. 

Grand Mosque, Djenne, Mali.

Then there is the Shaolin Temple in China, which includes a monastery. Here we are introduced to a Buddhist student, in his late teens, who is training to be a Warrior Monk. This includes an extremely complex martial art of Kung Fu. This lad had to train for many years before the great day he has to take a twofold test. The first is for him to demonstrate the skills of his Kung Fu training. This includes the Monkey Climb, where he had to balance himself on a pole very much like a monkey hanging from the branch of a tree. Except that in Kung Fu, the "branch" is an ordinary pole which is picked up and carried around like any other inanimate object. To pass the test, the student had to perform his moves with lightning speed and split-second accuracy.

The second part of the test was to recite his Scriptures off by heart. Texts from the Buddhist Pali Canon, for example, were picked out by pure random by the judges and had to be quoted by heart, without any referring to the book. It was equivalent to me being asked to quote verbally the whole chapter of Luke 18 or 1 Corinthians 5 by heart without looking at the New Testament. And he had to get every verse, every word, right. Then he is given judgement over the whole two-part test. Fortunately, he passed, which enabled him to become a full-time monk. Had he failed, he would have to wait three more years before retaking the test.

A Warrior Monk at Shaolin Temple, China.

These three are examples taken from a BBC documentary, Sacred Wonders, a series of just two episodes. I was intrigued by how such non-Christian religions have such demands for hard work and tests of physical and mental endurance to earn salvation or even worldly peace and prosperity. But there is this one nagging feeling I had when watching these programs, maybe two nagging feelings. One was the feeling of sorrow for these participants and their mental and spiritual enslavements to these works to attain salvation, whether it's heaven, nirvana or a good life here and now (probably followed by karma.) The other feeling was how weak, inadequate and mentally, spiritually and physically puny I felt when I compared myself to these three young men living around the world.

The Buddhist student, for example. If the two of us were standing in that courtyard face-to-face, he would floor me instantly! No matter how many gym workouts I might have had. No matter how hard and strong my barrel-shaped biceps might be, strength alone would be no match for this student young enough to be my grandson. And then after telling him that I have read and studied the Bible for the better part of half a century, he dared me to recite a chapter, any chapter, without peering into the book. With my own sense of idiocy enveloping me, I would have to kneel and beg for his understanding.

All this is a demonstration of single-hearted commitment to their faith, and especially when such faith demands endurance to breaking point and never shrinking back. Of the three, I have to admit that the Buddhist student had displayed the greatest demonstration of commitment, even if that test - if passed - was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove his worth for monkhood. As I see it, the other two candidates may not be so spectacular, but they have to endure such tests every year for the rest of their lives.

Do I see such levels of commitment among Western Christians, myself included? That's quite a point, that! After all, there is quite a difference between a true Christian who was martyred under a fuselage of flying stones under Caesar's orders or stretched helplessly on the Rack during the Inquisition, and that of a modern middle-class college graduate and regular church-goer admitting his belief in Theistic Evolution in order to save face before a sneering scoffer. 

It has made me wonder of the times I hesitated to make an outright confession of faith to an unbeliever when I felt a sudden wave of embarrassment. I still ask myself what has brought me to such a state? Is it from a sense of self-preservation, unsure how the unbeliever will react? Perhaps, but it was not always like this. I remember the 1970s in particular when I never hesitated to confess Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the risen Son of God. In a sense, I shook the whole of a precision engineering factory, both among the office staff in management and my colleagues on the shop floor alike. Back in those days, embarrassment wasn't an issue.

By looking at the lifestyles of these three young men, I try to get to the source of embarrassment. The first is the lack of a sense of assurance. And I say this as one who wholeheartedly believes in Eternal Security of the Believer. Could it be from the subconscious echo from Roman Catholic upbringing, when the presence of sins in my life has actually placed a block on my assurance? Or the teaching of some evangelicals who insist that we are not securely saved, but only conditionally, and salvation can be lost if those conditions aren't met? These churchgoers are known as Arminians, after a 16th Century Dutch theologian who taught such soteriology. We have a few of these people in our church at Ascot, despite our Elders' stance in Once Saved Always Saved. Indeed, I'm literally disliked by one Arminian couple who has already condemned me to Hell as an unrepentant sinner! That can be quite disturbing.

Tied to all this is this theory pushed as scientific fact and universally accepted - Darwin's Evolution. So certain is this in the minds of unbelievers (and many believers too) that for me to proclaim Divine Creation as both historical and scientific fact to an unbelieving world at times makes me feel like an idiot. 

To sum up: A lack of assurance from God and a fear of man's rejection of the Gospel has overtaken my commitment to evangelise my faith to outsiders.

Oh, do I need a new backbone! How I want to overcome this fear. Fear is bang opposite to faith. It's not a life I want to lead. And yet there are three sources where faith, I believe, can be gotten - through prayer, the Bible and church fellowship. All three are equally important and are used for building up of faith (known as edifying, from an Italian word Edificio - a building.) One of the wonders of church fellowship is the ability to get together with one of the Elders for a chat over coffee at Starbucks, or even a pub. I had a few of these and I find them so uplifting. To be loved, accepted without judgement by other believers is such a lovely thing, a sweet aroma drifting towards Heaven.

Then there's prayer. If I don't know what to pray about, which is often the case, then just by giving thanks for the temporary pleasures will often lead to intercession or to other topics. Temporary pleasures include marvelling at God's creation. I'm fortunate enough to live right next to some woods, and especially in the Summer, such can inspire thanksgiving. This along for my wife, our home, our holiday memories, our finances. Then along comes confession of sin and supplications - that is asking God for things, especially concerning our health.

And a thorough knowledge of the Bible mixed with faith is another of the three sources. For example, one well-known Arminian preacher once said:

There is not a hint of Once Saved Always Saved found anywhere in the New Testament.*

By studying the Bible and absorbing its goodness into the soul, I can point to at least three chapters where Eternal Security is hinted at - John 10, John 17 and Romans 8. And there are a lot more found elsewhere, even in the Old Testament. For example, in 1 Kings 19:18, we can read about how God has kept or reserved for himself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. This is not a chicken-or-egg scenario. Those seven thousand men were saved due to the imputed righteousness of Christ into their souls, and not because they simply decided not to bow to Baal. As with us, the salvation came first, then the sanctification.

Or the case of Job, who declared that he will see his Daysman stand on the earth with his own eyes, even if his own skin has long decayed, Job 19:27. And in Isaiah 53, there is one set of prophecies about how the suffering of God's servant will justify many (imputed righteousness) while he was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, and by his stripes, we are healed.

Together with Jeremiah's prophecies coupled with Ezekiel's about taking out the old heart of stone and replacing it with a new one of flesh, for his sake rather than ours, I can't help but read Eternal Security into these chapters. Above all, Arminianism denies the Omniscience of God, a divine characteristic these prophecies so well attest!

And that was why I felt sorry for those three young men - a Shinto, a Muslim and a Buddhist. Like the Jew, and despite their heroism, they have failed to attain the righteousness they were seeking, according to Romans 10:1-4. This is because they try to establish their own righteousness instead of accepting the imputed righteousness of Christ which is offered to all believers.

As for myself, it is my prayer that God will strengthen my backbone (metaphorically) and embolden me to share the love of God through faith in Jesus Christ, and at the same time, rebuke any belief in Evolution which destroys any credibility of the Gospel.

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* David Pawson, Cambridge post-graduate Methodist and holder of a B.A. in theology, an itinerant preacher and pastored several churches.

Illnesses - The Real Cause...

What a pathetic sight we must have been! Here we were, at Frimley Park Hospital, in the leafy county of Surrey, which is renowned for its wealthy, well-to-do population, perhaps the English version of Beverly Hills in California, but far less eventful and with a gentler climate.

My wife was an excellent sprinter, who would have left me behind at the start line while dashing to the finish. In turn, my memory was filled with swimming, fast cycling, and running, the three-in-one endurance race known as the Triathlon, with myself being a member of Thames Valley Triathletes between 1985 and 1992 inclusive, with one year as a member of the club's committee, and also the editor of the club's semi-annual magazine, Triangle.

Half Marathon, 1986.

It was during those years of peak physical fitness when, of these three disciplines, cycling was the dominant one. This included the 300-mile 483 km Newcastle-to-Reading sponsored cycle in less than three days, with some from our club alongside members of the Reading Lions. This was the inspiration for the End-to-End cycling accomplished a year later in 1990. The real difference between the two separate trips was while the Newcastle-Reading ride was fast, the End-to-End, which was completed in eleven days, was tedious, due to carrying our own luggage on our bikes instead of having a service van as was the case of the other.

What more can I say when it comes to a hilly hike along the West Coast Path, also along the Hadrian's Wall trail from Carlisle to Newcastle, or those lovely trecks across the Lake District, including looking down from "the Throne of England" (Scafell Pike) - not to forget the Manhatten City Hike or the Grand Canyon trails from rim to river.

Memories, memories - are they a source of joy or a source of torment? And so I was thinking as I sat in a wheelchair whilst wheeled by a porter from one department to another. Feeling melancholic as I endured intense pain at the knee joint. After an X-ray, the doctor came back to me to say that I have arthritis.

This was quite a shock! I have always interpreted this ailment as "an old man's disease." Arthritis is when the cartilage at the joint between two bones has worn thin until the gap - in my case, between the femur and the tibia - becomes narrower until the two bones threaten to touch. So the doctor tells me.

I was very concerned! Is normal living over? Will I be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life? Will I suffer sharp knee pains until I can have surgery? And being an elective, non-life-threatening procedure, most likely having to wait months, only for the op to be cancelled on the day.

How did this happen? Well, it occurred while I was preparing to exercise in the gym. I was approaching the rowers when all of a sudden there was this unexpected sharp and intense pain. I leaned on a nearby elliptical, trying to steady myself. I found that I was unable to stand up, let alone walk. Eventually, one of the gym's instructors saw me in such a state and along with her colleague, I was examined and an ambulance was called. In front of all the other patents using gym equipment, I was wheelchaired out of the gym to board an ambulance waiting for me outside.

Was it a coincidence that my knee gave way on the same day when Alex my beloved happen to have an appointment at the same hospital to have a cyst treated? After my knee was X-rayed and diagnosed, I was free to go when my wife arrived at the outpatient's department, having been given a lift by the same gym instructor who dealt with me that morning. After her ailment was examined by a consultant, it was decided for treatment straight away. That is, after a two-hour wait for her to digest the lunch she just had as well as being at the back of the queue of patients, all in need of day surgery.

It was during this two-hour wait when I allowed thoughts to pass through my mind. I dreaded life in a wheelchair or of constant use of crutches. Especially as a carer myself, I cannot afford to be incapacitated. Here we were, husband and wife, each in a wheelchair, next to each other. One has already received a diagnosis with no treatment on the horizon, the other also diagnosed and actually waiting for treatment.

Where have we come since our wedding day very nearly two decades earlier? Life in a wheelchair or on crutches? No more swimming? No more gym? No more walking and no more cycling? No more this or no more of that? The very thought brought shivers. It was a moment of blasted hope, a dread, the loss of independence. For example, for the church, I would have to rely on the generosity of others to give me a lift every week instead of trusting in my own two-wheeled steed. I kept on thinking. It could have been a lot worse. 

I remember hearing or reading stories of auto-crashes. If the driver or passenger survives, then he's likely to suffer paralysis from the neck downwards. Whether it's from a car accident, or from an act of daring stupidity, for the spine to break at the neck is the worst possible injury one could ever suffer. Permanent paralysis of the whole body from the chin down. Only today I read in a newspaper about this noted golfer, in his mid-twenties, who was away on holiday. He was visiting a water theme park which featured fast and daring flumes. So he stood at the top of one and decided to slide headfirst. Apparently, at the splash pool, he hit the bottom with such force that he broke his neck. After he was rescued and hospitalised, he is now permanently paralysed.

I try to put myself in his shoes. Just moments earlier I was in good health, fully mobile, independent, happy and living a normal life. Then this happens. All of a sudden, in one fell swoop, I lose everything except my life. The agony, the terrifying prospect of life in a wheelchair, completely immobile, and in need of constant full-time care, including being spoon-fed like a baby. What dread this would be! Realising that never again would I enjoy the freedom of mobility and independence I took so much for granted. If only I could turn back the clock, even by just a few minutes! I would have altered my fate by sliding feet-first, or even descend the steps if those behind me would let me through.

It was by realising the reality of such injuries, whether it's the patient's fault or the result of somebody else's error or an act of stupidity, that has brought me to my senses. What I had was a knee injury due to a life of wear and tear. I was not at all paralysed. Compared to total paralysis, what I have is a minor ailment, one I might cope with on a better level. Yet, as I sat and waited for Alex to be called in, I couldn't help but think about how I have taken all my blessings for granted. The ability to see, to hear, to speak, to walk, to run, cycle, swim. The ability to use my arms for all manner of tasks, including eating. The ability to kick a ball. Also, I was always endowed with the ability to read and write as well as to work out mathematical problems. All these things I took for granted and hardly ever gave these things a second thought. I also looked back to my days of travel, when it was quite easy to arrive at the airport to take off for a far-away destination. If left immobile, I would cry out for a revival of those glorious days. Indeed, to put me in the place of the former golfer would have brought terror! 

Aloud enough for Alex to hear, I began to recite this:

The Lord is my shield and my strength, my rock, and a strong tower, into it the righteous run and they are saved.

I began to feel my spirit rise as I began to thank God for everything I have taken for granted. And then I began to edify Alex, not to allow her faith in her God to fail. After this, I rose and fully supported by a pair of crutches, I tried walking. Despite the feeling of discomfort, I was able to manage some steps - a big improvement from the gym that morning and a source of greater hope - that life will return to normal. Today, while this blog is written, I took breaks and found that I can walk a few steps entirely without the need for crutches and without discomfort.

This leads me to believe that life will return to normal, but knowing that I have arthritis, I am now aware that my knee can suffer again in the future. The pain is imminent, it can come suddenly, at any moment. Whether walking, cycling, in the gym or even in the swimming pool, or during a church service, or while sitting in a train, or as a passenger in a friend's car, my leg can convulse in sudden, sharp pain. If such pain can literally immobilise me, like it did in the gym, then the situation can be catastrophic!

Really, by comparison to others, I'm not an old man. I have a friend in church who is two years my senior, yet his health is enviable. Therefore, at this point, I would like to ask: What has led me to such a state, and for that matter, Alex's illnesses?

Here I'm talking about illnesses which have developed on a gradual basis rather than by an accident. According to one Christian doctor with a lifetime of experience, nearly all illnesses are caused by an upset mind.* This GP has named nearly a hundred illnesses which are linked by an upset mind harbouring negative emotions. Emotions such as fear, persistent worry, excess stress, prolonged anger and bitterness, along with unforgiveness, constantly bearing a grudge against the wrongdoer.

Diseases such as cancer, heart attacks, strokes, alimentary canal disorders, circulatory disorders, disorders of the genito-uninary system, and nervous disorders are just a few types of illness which can be caused by harbouring unhealthy emotions towards someone, a group of people or an unfavourable circumstance. This doctor points out that the two adrenal glands, each one sitting on each the two kidneys, are responsible for many illnesses, as these glands produce the hormone adrenaline. Normally, adrenaline is a life preserver when coping with alarm. For example, when under threat of danger, adrenaline triggers a sudden fight-or-flight response. One true story is that of an adolescent who was with his father under his car as he was maintaining it. Suddenly the jack gave way, and as the car threatened to crush the father underneath it, the lad, in fright, was able to lift the car so his dad can crawl out from under it.

When the lad tried to lift the car again under peaceful circumstances, he wasn't able to budge it whatsoever. Here, adrenaline had its proper purpose. It was to enable the lad to act in an emergency.

But negative emotions cause the two glands to constantly secrete adrenaline. Emotions such as fear, anxiety and anger are the chief negative emotions along with hatred and bitterness. This cause higher-than-normal amounts of the hormone to be constantly pumped into the bloodstream, which will eventually upset the delicately balanced systems which maintain the body's health.

But we don't have to rely on a book to see for ourselves. We have the experience. Take me for instance. For several years the Big Three was the main cause for fear and anxiety. The Big Three are Brexit, Alex's health, and Future Financial issues. By allowing myself to worry over these issues has allowed adrenaline to constantly infiltrate my bloodstream. This has accelerated the wearing down of the cartilage lining the knee joint, bringing arthritis at a comparatively early age. That was why only this morning, while I was hobbling to Starbucks on a pair of crutches, I was overtaken by a man walking without any aid and who looks to be in his seventies.

This was confirmed by a recent newspaper report that those with a pessimistic temperament are more likely to fall ill at an earlier age than the natural optimistic, and probably die earlier too. But really, I have to admit my lack of faith in God. As I see it, Brexit is more likely a judgement from God rather than redemption or blessing. This is due to the nationwide rejection of God and the dismissal of the historical truth of the Bible, to embrace a lie. Personally, a nation which rejects God is not likely to be blessed.

Hence my anxiety, leading to arthritis. And here, I'm not blameless. Rather, I need to nourish and strengthen my faith in God's goodness, which would give me peace during such turbulent times. Faith in God is the only hope which will hold out in these last days.

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*S. I. McMillen M.D. None of these Diseases, 1966, 1980, Lakeland Paperbacks.

Education. Intelligence or Vanity?

It was a typical weekday cleaning windows under dull, drizzly weather, giving the air a melancholic feel, when the turn came to call at one particular house on a street of privately owned homes. This particular elderly gentleman had recently lost his wife to illness, cancer, I believe. He answered my knock on his door.

I can't understand why you're out here in this atrocious weather! I'm not sure about allowing you to work on a day like this, he said.

Cleaning windows on a damp, dreary Autumn day was not exactly like spending a day at a carnival on a warm Summer's day, or the excitement felt while boarding a long-haul flight for a Round-the-World backpacking trip. Rather, it was either this or watching my wife and myself go hungry and into debt. Therefore there was no surprise on his part for my feeling of irritableness.

Atrocious weather? This? I replied. Remember what happened in New Orleans. If wind and rain can literally wipe a city off the map, then that is atrocious weather! Not this - as I waved my hand around the moist-ridden air. The client relented and allowed me to proceed with the task at hand.

I was referring to Hurricane Katrina, which formed over the Atlantic Ocean on August 23rd 2005, and passed over New Orleans nearly a week later on the 29th, taking with it up to 1,836 lives as it swirled over the city at 175 mph. The talk I had with this English gentleman was just a few weeks later, and therefore still fresh on our minds.

The effects of Hurricane Katrina, August 2005.

I believe that after 37 years of manual work, that is from the day I left school in 1968 to that dismal day in 2005, I have toughened up to the point of looking at adversity or even at danger with a smile. Maybe that was why such a negative attitude from this elderly gentleman took me by surprise, especially if he was around during the War or even having fought in it. Then, having lost his beloved so recently after decades of happy marriage would make him feel emotionally vulnerable, wouldn't it? Indeed, on that day I should have been more sensitive to his point of view rather than constantly worrying about home finances, even if I was always the sole breadwinner.

This mental toughening up against the knocks life throws at us, maybe that was why, while onboard the United Airlines flight to New York from London in 1995, one of the air stewardesses gasped, and said how brave I was, after I have spoken to her about the excitement lying ahead as I make my way to California with a backpack over my shoulders. Her reaction had indeed taken me by surprise. However, it was during a normal day at work, standing on a sloping roof while cleaning a window above it, which tested my mettle, yet was part and parcel of my job from which I received no praise at all.

As such, media stories of students committing suicide have always been a puzzlement to me! The majority of students who commit suicide is male. However, the latest case is of this British female from Milton Keynes, who so recently fallen out of a light aircraft while flying over the forests of Madagascar. At first, I thought that she was a victim of a terrible accident involving the plane door flying open mid-air and sucking her out. But it turned out that she opened the door herself and jumped out, despite the attempted restraint by both the pilot and another passenger.

The student, who attended Cambridge University, was out on a project examining a rare species of crab when she suffered a panic attack. She contacted her parents back in the UK, and they either advised her to return home just three or four days into her month-long trip. Or they might have tried to encourage her to stay and finish her project. Apparently, a heated argument developed, which on one hand may be an indication that either she wanted to cut short her trip and return home, or on the other hand, she was unwilling to return home so soon. But either way, she then leapt to her death whilst flying from her venue to the international airport.

The whole scenario beggars belief! Here she was, a student at Cambridge University, meant to enjoy one of the greatest privileges life can offer - to study and train to be a scientist, and to work in a laboratory, which would have been the envy of one such as myself who had to scrape a living outside in the cold, wind and rain. 

Yet she was not alone. Far from it. Rather, it follows other stories of undergraduates committing suicide as well as many more suffering from mental illness of some sort. And as I have already mentioned, the majority of such cases is male, which fits in with the overall majority of suicides across the nation. Our culture strongly encourages, if not actually demand, that the British man must keep his emotions bottled up, to keep up the image of stoicism, making self-harm an easier option than talking to someone who could help. But in the case of undergraduates, whom I perceive as very fortunate to enter further education in the first place, I have to admit and ask: What's going on?

This sort of thing was totally unknown in my day when I had to push a broom across the factory shop floor and endure smut, quite a bit of teasing, even verbal bullying. Yet I never considered suicide, but, as I realised later, as part of a process to toughen me up in readiness to face a challenging world.

The light aircraft in flight during the jump.

But here I had to be honest. When I found myself at work as a machinist in a precision engineering company in the 1970s, I did have an eye of envy towards the adjoining office staff. Their smart dress commanded far greater respect from society. They were the ones who did well at school and passed both GCE 'O' Level and 'A' Level exams while still at school, and landed good jobs as a result, even without having to graduate. A university graduate holding a degree was, back in those days, someone to be revered. Maybe this trend of "degree inflation" which affected more recent years might have coincided with the rise of mental health issues and eventually suicide. In other words, a degree nowadays is hardly worth the paper it's printed on, so the media tell us. Could that, along with the eye-watering tuition fees, be the reason why this lovely young woman ended her life so dramatically?

It is from this greater respect and a keener interest given by society to graduates and those who hold careers in the profession which at this point I would like to ask: What do you think of this blog? Is it well written? If by chance, you think this and all my other blogs are well written, then this is a result of constant practice, backed by my enjoyment of reading. Yes, I did attend evening class to study the English Language GCE 'O' Level at a local college some years after leaving school, and I managed to scrape through with a pass. Yet this was enough for a foundation to build my writing skills on afterwards. Mainly by reading other people's work and using them as examples to build my own experience.

This was not done with any reluctance. I recall as a young boy sitting at a table and writing letters to my relatives living overseas. How I thoroughly enjoyed it. And unlike many in my class, I did not find writing a necessary burden one must bear while wearing school uniform. I find the ability to string words together, a wonderful privilege given to me by God, and left with a responsibility to nourish this God-given ability.

And here is a sorry truth. If I was a graduate myself, I would have had a much larger number of page views than I presently have. Instead, I know of several graduates belonging to local churches who don't read these blogs. They give various reasons for this - they don't have the time, they are too busy, they are irrelevant to them, it's not their style. But none would give the honest truth, and the honest truth is this: Reading my blogs will rock their egos. That is to say, I pose some kind of threat. After all, someone with my background is not supposed to create anything to this standard. Instead, I should know my place on the social and academic ladder and stay there, perhaps with a daily swig in the pub and mixing among fellow working-class mates, yet remaining in lifelong ignorance and never to be taken seriously by the middle classes.

It was once a temptation to add Dr in front of my name on this page, but then I decided against the idea. Not only would I be deceitful, but chances that even among readers whom I have never met, they would see that my writing is considerably amateurish for a doctor. But working on what God has already given me is still the right thing to do.

And trusting in God, I think, is the real foundation for success. I could take Frank Sinatra's song My Way and look back at my life before retirement and say that I did it my way. But I much prefer to say that I did it God's way. Sure enough, I have never seen the inside of a university, the only time I saw the inside of an office was as a client, I worked manually with my hands, much of that in the realm of cleaning, for nearly half a century. Yet I have travelled the world, I have partaken in long-distance cycling and triathlons, I was even a pool lifeguard for several months when I was twenty, perhaps perceived by some as a "glamorous" job and maybe being as close to a paramedic as the job allowed.

I want to be seen at the Judgement Seat of Christ as one who did it God's way. And one of the greatest tools for going God's way is a thorough knowledge of the Bible, laced with the filling of the Holy Spirit. That is why I have always insisted that Bible reading increases intelligence. I can testify that this has happened to me, and I can assure anyone who wishes to read the Bible with faith in his heart that this will happen to him also.

And a heart-belief in the Gospel. The Good News. That is, God had created our first parents in God's own image. Unfortunately, their mistake brought sin into their lives, and we have lived with sin in our lives ever since, which means eternal separation from God. God gave the Law to Israel, showing all of us exactly what a pure holy life is all about. The trouble is, nobody was ever able to keep the Law perfectly. Even if someone did keep the Law perfectly until he stumbled at just one minor point - that was it. He had broken the Law, and must now face Judgement.

But God, in both his love for us and for his glory, sent his Son Jesus Christ, a man entirely without sin, to atone for us by dying on a cross, he was buried, and three days later he was resurrected from the dead. It was this third issue - his Resurrection - which makes Christianity stand out from all other religions. No other religious founder or leader was ever resurrected. Instead, their bones are with us to this day. The Resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth was proof that he is the Christ, the Jewish Messiah. Because of his Resurrection, he can give eternal life with God to all who believe, having atoned for sin on the cross.

Christ's own righteousness, his perfect life, is imputed to everyone who believes. That is, God sees each believer as he sees his only Son. That is why the concept of Eternal Security, or Once Saved Always Saved, is Biblical. No other religion teaches this. Only Biblical Christianity. 

Eternal Security of the Believer is a life-changing doctrine. While at Sainsbury's superstore, I was met by one female who attends our church at Ascot. When I related to her about my wife's breast cancer and the course of chemotherapy she is at present going through, she was rather surprised about our lion's share of bad things happening to us. I could have said something like, "yes I know, life is always bad, unfair. Woe is me, in my sorrow, I go to the grave."

But I didn't say that. Instead, I expressed my determination to keep going, to keep on looking after my beloved wife, and thanking God for the NHS. And I know as I take Alex into my arms and look lovingly into her eyes, everything will be okay, even in her illness, for God is with us and he will never leave or forsake us. Once saved Always Saved. This truth is a foundation stone for us to keep going, no matter how bad circumstances can get.

That poor, poor Cambridge student. She had an enviable life, with the ability to travel halfway around the world to Madagascar, she was studying in one of the world's top universities, in preparation to work in a laboratory or as a field scientist. It was a pair of shoes I would have jumped into with enthusiastic glee. Yet she is no longer with us. What a crying shame! Because she had never known the TRUE meaning of life, and a university degree gotten at Cambridge wasn't it.