England Goodbye...

This blog I decided to write after numerous patriotic symbols of England were posted on Facebook, on the run-up to St Georges Day.
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Of my travel experiences, most but not all, were done solo, as that was the way I would have preferred to travel, as testified in previous blogs. But it can be exhilarating to share the experience with one other person. And really, this is as far as I would go - since we have committed ourselves to each other, while three or more would have been a crowd. Such was the time Gary (name changed) and I successfully completed the End-to-End cycling tour southbound from one end of mainland Great Britain to the other in 1990.

The traditional route would have been 874 miles long, but since we did not stick to the official route, but detoured at various places, especially looking for our hostels to spend each night, I would have not been too surprised if we covered closer to a thousand miles in less than two weeks. Each daily leg of the journey was different, and each unique in distance, terrain and weather conditions. In all, if we were to average out even just nine hundred miles over twelve days, this would have brought about 75 miles of cycling a day.



This did not come overnight. In preparation for that holiday, I completed a number of cycling "burn-ups" - fast rides done mostly early Sunday mornings averaging between 25 and thirty miles, along with cycling trips to the coast (up to sixty miles) and Triathlons (Swim, Cycle and Run within one race).

Farnham Triathlon, 1987

Many in my church were impressed with our coming endeavour (Gary attended another church elsewhere.) But teasing came in the form of "Downhill all the way" as we were about to cycle from John O'Groats on the northern tip of Scotland, to Lands End, on the western tip of Cornwall - in other words, the whole journey in the southerly direction. One guy, a devout Englishman who loved his suit and tie, got rather serious with this "Downhill all the way" that I got rather tired of hearing it. Even Gary was confused at one point and I recall, during a coffee stop at a cafe, explaining that the centre of gravity was at the Earth's core, not at the Equator or the South Pole - something I had already known from childhood. I guessed that the "Downhill all the way" idea was gotten after watching water being poured over a sphere, and running down the surface to the underside of the sphere and dripping off the South Pole area. With our planet "hanging upon nothing" in space, and its gravity at its core, little surprise that whenever the road headed skyward, we always found the pedalling a lot more difficult!

After spending the first few days cycling through Scotland, we arrived at the border with England. The A7 main road passed two signboards - one was the massive "Welcome to Scotland" sign, which towered well above our heads. The other, almost directly across the road, was a much smaller sign which simply read, "England" which was low enough to be at chest level.

The contrast between the two signs seemed to have reflected the level of pride between the two nations. Whenever Scotland celebrates its annual St Andrews Day, there is that festive buzz in the air, so I read. Last week we had our St Georges Day on April 23rd. Not only was it a working day, but was just as any other working day of the year. Not a bunting could be seen anywhere, people drove to their offices with glum faces as they always do. Traffic congestion build up then dissipates as more arrive at their destinations. Trains full of silent commuters, not a word spoken, far less a greeting. At the office, computer keyboards are at constant use, phones ring and trading gets underway. Just another day. But at least the city of Nottingham managed to put on a street show with plenty of flags and bunting. But then again, Nottingham is somewhere up north, where according to my experience, people up there talk to each other. Here in the South of England there is as much charisma as in a wet blanket.

Newspaper journalists love to boast of our stoicism, the stiff upper lip, our self control over our emotions which are all hallmarks of being English. According to them, to show emotion, or having a trembling lower lip, is a sign of weakness. One Daily Mail reporter even insist that true masculinity had dissipated since the death of Princess Diana in August 1997. We have, according to them, became a sentimental, mawkish, weepy society, especially when TV presenters or interviewees shed a tear on camera over a crisis or tragedy. I often wonder why the English have such an obsession with stoicism, but I came to the belief that it has all to do with our cool temperate climate.

 

A good example was last week. Much of the week was bathed in warm, pleasant sunshine with temperatures soaring to twenty degrees Celsius. Supermarkets reported a brisk trade in barbecue items in preparation for the weekend. Come Friday and a cold front from the north moved south towards the Continent. Behind it, we shivered under a cold blast from the Artic and yesterday I was caught out in a heavy hail shower. In such unpredictable weather and scuppered plans, I think stoicism is necessary for keeping sane. Indeed, there will always be an England, even with such rubbish climate!

England, O England! A country which places so much emphasis on social class, higher education, the professionals and the adoration of celebrities. It looks to me that having a university degree is the be all or end all, a must in achieving, or our lives are not worth living. If ever there was a country where personal worth is evaluated by occupation, level of education, wealth, property and mode of transport, then the English seem to have a distinct knack of assigning a slot in the social ladder. For example, as a cyclist (I don't own or drive a car) I need to be weary of the "career girl" the free-spirited professional high-flier driving a two-seater sports car, paying little regard to such a vulnerable cyclist whose presence had forced her to slow down and raise her ire. I don't want to sound sexist here, but I have often found career women in their late twenties and thirties to be more aggressive behind the wheel - maybe having less patience when a cyclist, who shouldn't be there, makes an appearance. Don't get me wrong, a lot of male drivers require a lot to be desired as well when it comes to highway manners. Maybe that is why these days I ride slower, on the excellent cycle path system we have in our area, but even with this, England does not hold a candle to Holland, which to my opinion, have the best cycleway system in the world.

When someone like me has travelled the world, particularly around the Mediterranean, I have found that it becomes easier to compare Englishness to cultures of other countries. For example, in Sicily I have found residents sitting outside their open front doors chatting away with their neighbours. Walk along a typical residential street and I would walk past lines of happy, chattering people and children playing.  Here in England, in the South (i.e. in the Home Counties bordering around London) there are quiet, almost deserted streets under this constant air of melancholy, which is tied in with the well-familiar saying, "Mustn't grumble" as if there was much to grumble about. Our lousy, unpredictable weather certainly doesn't help, making outdoor life a rare thing to be seen. While I was backpacking in Australia, it was not unusual to see public, coin-operated barbecue stoves permanently set up in city parks. Try finding these here. Such an outdoorsy sort of lifestyle would not be suitable in our climate and matching culture.

Yet England does have beautiful natural places which I'm sure, would, delight the eye of the beholder. One of my favourite areas is the Jurassic Coast Path, particularly from Swanage to Weymouth in Dorset. Here dynamic cliffs provide spectacular views of the coast including the famous Durdle Door rock formation.

Other beautiful places visited also included the Lake District National Park, in the northern county of Cumbria. Notoriously wet, taking in such scenery can be quite difficult, even in the Summer. But on one occasion in 1992, Gary and I were climbing Scaffel Pike, England's highest mountain which was shrouded in thick fog. As we carefully hiked the well-marked trail, we were nearing the summit when this fellow was moaning as he was coming back down.

"Several times I have climbed to the top and it was always shrouded in fog!" he declared as we passed him.

We pressed on until we arrived at the summit. Suddenly the fog began to lift, and as it did so, the whole of the panorama began to come into view. With steam rising in cloud columns, at first it looked a bit like a scene from Dante's inferno. Then the sun broke through to give us a magnificent view of the mountainous park, with Sty Head Tarn a couple of miles away as the crow flies.

No doubt, away from the sprawling suburbs, England does have its beauty, and as a believer in Jesus Christ, I have no problem in giving such credit to God's power in his handiwork. Yet also as a believer, our true home is in Heaven where there is not only a mansion being prepared for every believer, but even while we live here, we are already seated in Heaven, and Paul reminds us to set our minds on things above, where Christ is seated, rather than on things of the earth. Celebrating St Georges day is okay, but how much more are we to celebrate our redemption into God's Kingdom.

In Hebrews 11, there is a list of the Old Testament men of faith who has made it into this hall of fame. Within this list, the writer adds that if they wanted to, these guys could have returned to their homeland. Abraham was one good example. He was called out of Ur, in the region of Babylon, to live as a nomad in the desert land of the Canaanites, a people totally foreign to him. Some time ago, I read that in the ancient Babylonian culture, education was high on the list. Astrology along with mathematics were two of the most important subjects. Back there, children was taught the approximation of Pi, the square root, possibly the cubic root and all branches of geometry.

Shades of England.

But instead, Abraham and his fellowmen of faith looked forward to a city whose founder and builder is God himself. His longing for the promise was enough for him to leave behind his homeland and culture, and not knowing where he was going, allowed himself and his family to a nomadic lifestyle while remaining focused on God's promises.

Moses was another great example. With him, the writer of Hebrews emphasised that Moses preferred to suffer disgrace along with the people of God, that is, his fellow Hebrews, than to wallow in the Egyptian culture of the day. He too, was focused on the heavenly city God had promised, and he was willing to give up everything to be part of it. And it is interesting that ancient Egypt deified their monarch in much the same way as the English deify the Queen today. But as Moses and Abraham looked to better things God had promised, shouldn't we too?

 

Yes It's Raining - And We Love It!

Last week I took my wife Alex to Torquay in Devon, after accepting a recommendation to visit Torquay from Keith, a very good friend of mine who grew up in Devon. This particular area of the United Kingdom is also known as The English Riviera, because of the remarkably mild winters, allowing various species of palm trees and other vegetation, particularly from the Mediterranean, to flourish there.

We had just one day when the weather was warm, dry and sunny. The sea sparkled blue, the trees lush, people were in a good mood and our spirits were high. And I thanked God for such lovely weather we were able to enjoy while we set off on a day-hike on the South Devon Coast Path, a section of the West Coast Path, a hiking trail stretching 630 miles (1,020 km) from Studland Bay in Dorset to Minehead in Somerset.

However, two days later, dawn came with an overcast sky, and as soon as we set off for a day out, it began to rain, and it rained moderate to heavy all day with hardly a respite.

Our cool temperate climate here in the UK is always the talk of the town. In fact, I can go as far to say that a comment about the weather is a form of greeting between two passing strangers, and it is a good ice-breaker when in need to start a conversation. This is because, unlike the Mediterranean, which has long dry summers, our weather is constantly changing from one day to the next. I would go as far to say that declaring a drought after a couple of days of sunshine is now a standing joke.

After two or three months of frequent rain, our media is already describing our summer as "a total washout," together with "gloomy Britain," and statistically "the wettest June since records began," and "a month's rain in 24 hours." On the BBC weather forecasting, the attitude of the presenter is always to pray away the rain and, "we look forward for some sunshine over the weekend." If the Met Office cannot dish out the sunshine, then the BBC forecast for rain is often delivered with an apologetic tone of voice. Then among the academics, there was first the warning of global cooling, with the threat that we were about to enter a new Ice Age. Then a few years later, it was global warming, both caused by man-made pollutants pumped daily into our atmosphere. Nowadays, the issue is climate change, after a series of cool British summers seem to belie any idea that our planet was getting warmer. Whichever term the academics are giving to our climate situation, the message is clear: a climatic Armageddon is just around the corner, and it will be upon us if we don't act quickly enough.

At times I wonder how did such ideas originate? As far as I recall, our climate had always been changeable. Hot, dry weather hardly ever outlasted a week here in the UK, with just a rare occasion of such weather lasting up to a month. Even in the art world, English scenery painted in bygone ages often depict wet weather, as if just as normal then as now. So why all this talk and statistics about our present climate?

Personally, I believe this to be linked with our ability to travel internationally for leisure, something past generations were denied. And as Mediterranean countries opened their doors for tourism in the 1960s, so it became a natural habit to compare their climate favourably against ours. So international tourism grew to be such a successful business, until it is only second to Defence in being the largest service industry in the UK.

The British are crying out for sunshine, it seems, as if their lives depend on it. Just a couple of days ago the Daily Express national newspaper carried a threat of an airport strike corresponding to the holiday getaway after the end of school term. The front-page headline said in words depicting the "sheer misery added to thousands of holidaymakers looking for some sunshine after weeks of gloom here in Britain..."  Such is the adversity we feel towards wet weather.

But do we as Christians need to feel that way?

My wife and I had spent three full days in Devon, not including the two additional days set aside for the train journeys. On day one, we had wall-to-wall sunshine, strong enough to burn our skins red. As already mentioned, we day-hiked on the South Devon Coast Path. For us, it was heaven. Then on the second day we took a ferry to sail across the bay to a fishing town of Brixham. Then the sky was overcast all day but still mainly dry. By evening of that day a wind has started to blow, making the return sailing turbulent as the boat tossed about on the rising waves. Standing outside on deck, holding tight to the railing with the sea just two or three feet below, I swayed with the boat and looked out to sea, to prevent seasickness. I loved it. During that experience, I thought about the prophet Jonas out at sea during an even greater storm. How he would have felt on board that rocking ship, not having gone out to sea ever in his entire life, as seafaring was not part of Jewish life and culture during Old Testament times.

Then on the third day, (also suggested by my good mate Keith,) we decided on a visit to a nearby village of Cockington, basically an open air museum of how life was like during Victorian days, with craft workshops in full operation, particularly in glass-blowing. The wind of the previous evening brought the rain, and it rained moderate to heavy throughout the entire day. It was easy for us to feel gloomy in such an environment, with all the lovely colours of trees, leaves, flowers and the general surroundings turned to various shades of grey. But did we feel "let down" by God?

Standing by the stream near Cockington, Devon. The orbs are raindrops.

Not at all! First we needed to consider our state of health. My wife's skin, especially at her forehead, had turned red from the full day's sunshine, and further sunshine would have brought greater discomfort, maybe affecting her health altogether. But on the positive side, the path to the village passed through a park which had a stream (or a creek) running alongside the path, which became a boardwalk when ever the stream meandered underneath it. The rain had swelled the stream to full flow, and to me there is something very spiritual about a fast flowing brook. Both path and stream were at the foot of a forest-covered hill, with branches of trees providing some form of shelter from the rain.

When we arrived at the village church, we went inside and I knelt down and gave thanks to God for all his goodness, including the rain, which plays a major role in sustaining life by feeding our rivers, lakes and reservoirs as well as turning all the lovely vegetation around us to a deep, rich green, a sign of good health. When we arrived back at the beach, I practically danced and rejoiced in the goodness of God, no matter how ugly and unattractive the weather had made the coastline to be. Although it rained hard, we sauntered back into Torquay town centre in high spirits, to look forward to the plate of hot steak and kidney pie and potato chips (fries) at a local fish restaurant.

With seaweed for company, we felt jubilation as it rained on the beach.

Wet weather can easily get us down and make us feel depressed and gloomy. Public opinion, backed by the Media, endorse this, and has led to the sprouting of a highly prosperous tourism industry, with multiple millions of Brits heading for sunshine every year. But the cool temperate climate of the UK is due to its rather isolated position between the vast Atlantic Ocean on one side, and the North Sea on the other. Britain is also at the right lateral position for the warm, moist air carried by the North Atlantic Drift to meet the cold Polar air, resulting in these low pressure swirls which brings the rain. Because this is a fallen world due to sin our present global climate, including our cool temperate, is the best to sustain all life. For a new, better creation to come into being, God will have to intervene and put away sin forever and to usher in perfect righteousness. This is the definite promise that only God will keep and fulfil. And for everyone who have believed on the name of Jesus Christ for salvation can look forward to an eternity with God in a magnificent new creation which will never be spoilt by sin again.

Nor for that matter, wet weather.