Thankfulness Arrives - After 63 Years!

Every weekday morning up to September 12th, 2015, or at least nearly every weekday morning throughout our then sixteen years of marriage, just before rising, I ask my sleeping wife in bed next to me: 

Would you like breakfast, dear? Or more realistically: Breakfast?

When she normally answers in the affirmative, often with a sleepy hum which tone I can interpret, I then utter a groan:

Doh! Another day to face! - As if such was another day on the battlefront, in prison, or attempting to teach, without much success, a class of rowdy and verbally abusive pupils while at the same time forbidden by law to keep a cane in my desk drawer, as many staff members did half a century earlier.  

No, it was none of these. Rather, as one self-employed and depending on my own initiative, and without a boss to tell me what to do, or to cover for me if anything goes pear-shaped, to set out to the street I'm currently working in to ensure that I return home that evening with enough cash in my bag to keep our stomachs full, to keep our bodies clothed, to keep a roof over us, and to satisfy all creditors.

A bowl of Malted Wheat for breakfast is ideal for both of us.

And so, a typical morning in the life of a window cleaner. Hoping for a smooth sail - or ride - whichever way you interpret, sometimes it won't be as I hoped. The bright sky allowing sunlight to stream through our bedroom window looks so inviting, thus, doubting the day's forecast. But soon, clouds gather and eventually, the heavens tip a heavy shower over our locality. Then the customer comes to the door with the announcement that she does not have her windows done during wet weather.

No payment coming from that house, then.

At another property, the front of the house had received a facelift with a sloping roof built beneath the two front bedroom windows. One way to reach them was to stand on the recently-wetted roof tiles and risk a slip and a fall to the ground - very much like the accident that occurred in September 1997, which was exactly what happened, fracturing my right shoulder and ribs, and also causing a small wound on the scalp which dyed the whole of my hair blood-red and puddled the concrete step where I landed. After five days in hospital, I had to take a further two months off work with my arm resting in a sling.

With further wrestling with the weather, it was business as usual. Whether we had rain, snow, fog, wind, or warm sunshine soaking my shirt with sweat, by the grace of God, I managed all 35 years of it. And this includes the unexpected - a client messing around whilst deliberately delaying payment or even giving me a bag full of pennies, losing customers due to the sale of their property, or being made redundant, a death of an elderly pensioner, or disputes - usually about payments - that can so unexpectedly arise. There was even one occasion when this thirty-year-old asked me to take a tight screw out of the wall of his property after struggling unsuccessfully with it. I climbed up his ladder and turned it without too much difficulty. But was he pleased? Rather, I became scum, a target for his expletives! Oh well, busting egos wasn't meant to be part of the job.

Then you wonder why I said back then, I have another day to face.

However, retirement wasn't all a sense of relief as I first anticipated. Rather, I was suddenly aware that I had just turned a page in my life book. More than that, a chapter ended and a new one begins. A chapter that is titled, 

A Pensioner.

A pensioner. Whenever I imagine a pensioner, I tend to visualise an elderly gentleman and grandfather with wrinkly skin and thinning white hair, stooping forward as he relies on the support of his walking stick, trembling as he slowly makes his way on his three legs. And now, I'm one - a pensioner. Yet this isn't a definition of a mere elderly gentleman. Rather, he is defined by his income - the money he receives to live on. The same money as a wage, salary, or even benefit, but this one with another name, the one which defines old age.

A pensioner I might be, simply because the income I receive is called a pension. But, thanks be to God, I bear no resemblance to the elderly gentleman I had described above. Instead, I could pass myself off as in my forties or fifties. I need to be. My current job is to love and look after my partially-disabled wife. Thus my need for regular exercise and sensible eating. I suppose there is no such thing as retirement in a true sense of the word, at least for the Christian. Rather, I merely changed jobs.

But this changing of jobs has brought a whole new dimension in my perception of life, and that is, to be thankful for each day God gives me. It's to be thankful for the appreciation of the finer things in life - the benefit to serve Christ in a way by giving to those in need, whether time, money or even both. And to appreciate God's mercy. And I'm talking here about the rollout of the vaccines for inoculating against the virus. 

Since I see the vaccine rollout as a wonderful act of God's mercy, I grieve when I hear about or read of some of the stuff put out by anti-vaxxers. I am aware of at least four people, all of them Christians, three of the four are women, one of them giving an almost convincing argument that this worldwide vaccination programme is the forerunner of the coming Antichrist, and therefore paving a way to receive the Mark of the Beast described in Revelation 13 - even though each jab has no resemblance to what is written in the Bible.

This kind of false news which anyone can write on Facebook can be frightfully convincing to anyone not fully acquainted with Holy Scripture. But the vision to get a vaccine out to combat Covid-19 as soon as possible was shared among middle-aged, professional women, rather than by men in suits.

Soon after the outbreak of the pandemic early in 2020, a 45-year old Cambridge graduate, Maddy McTernan, spent a night at her desk negotiating for contracts with firms such as Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer and AstraZeneca for millions of doses to be made and delivered to the UK before even one vial was produced. Sarah Gilbert, Teresa Lamb, Annette England, and Kate Bingham were the pioneers for the development of these vaccines which would, I hope, eventually free us from the grip of the pandemic.

And so, God's mercy works through these people and all the teams of scientists involved in developing such inoculations against the various strains of the pathogen. But instead of giving thanks and glory to God for such mercy shown, many, and Brexiteers in particular, began to act with aloofness against the EU, when a lack of proper coordination and fearmongering among its leaders has set the EU into a disadvantage when it comes to the vaccine rollout across the Continent.

As this arrogance begins to make itself felt, with Brexiteers going as far as laughing at Europe's misfortune, such statements appearing especially on Facebook, what I have found as a comforting rebuke, also on Facebook, is taken from Proverbs 24:17-18:

Do not gloat when the enemy falls; when they stumble, do not let your heart rejoice, or the LORD will see and disapprove and turn his wrath away from him.

The trouble is, English Brexiteers has acted arrogantly against Europe and gloated over its failures. And such evil attitudes are also found among Christians, who should know better. This can make it difficult to fellowship with them. It takes a greater effort of the Holy Spirit at work within to stay friends with them, to do them good and to show hospitality. But as long as this gloating is kept up, sooner or later the tables will be turned. Although God is God, and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and his ways than our ways, it still may not be too difficult to fathom out what might happen in the future.

And that, the EU vaccine rollout will eventually accelerate until the disease is brought under control, alongside a growing economy among member nations following the end of the pandemic. In turn, although Britain might, by then, have brought the virus under control, its economy might suffer as a result of the new trade tariffs affecting imports and exports of goods, along with the dispute affecting the borders with Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and perhaps a further collapse of its interior economy in one way or another. And who can guarantee that The Troubles will never restart? Or be free from the threat of international terrorism? Indeed, with such fears, everything has always looked to be so fragile. 

And such fragility of emotions had reared its head again only this week when two presenters of BBC Breakfast, Naga Munchetty and Charlie Stayt, made a gag against Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick on the morning of Thursday, March 18th, 2021, regarding a British flag and a portrait of the Queen, both on display in his studio. I never watch these chat shows at all, as they tend to be a drag and boring, but I couldn't help take notice of the fuss surrounding this incident, right in the wake of the Meghan/Winfred scandal. Then, in today's edition of the Daily Mail, I read of Amanda Platell's tirade against the BBC as a whole for allowing these two to "lambaste" Jenrick.

The word "lambaste" is a pretty strong word to use for what was meant to be a lighthearted joke. But all this shows a fragile, eggshell culture of national insecurity. Platell goes on to say that there is no other country where its citizens poke fun or criticise the presence of its own flag.

Perhaps I can see what she means. Having visited both the USA and Australia, I saw that both take great pride in their flag. In the States, its Stars and Stripes flies from the flagstaff of every administrative building, while in Australia, the image of the Southern Cross Constellation with the British Union Jack at one corner reveals the pride the Aussies have in being one in the Commonwealth. I recall one morning when I stayed at a hostel at the Queensland resort of Hervey Bay, which is also the launching pad for ferries to nearby Frazer Island, the world's largest sandbank. It was here where I asked to cash a US$ Traveller's Cheque. I was almost to the point of being told off for daring to request for such transactions on the Queen's Birthday, which, Down Under, is a public holiday. Fortunately, I had my credit card at the time, which bailed me out from a sticky situation. Then my friends wonder why I'm sympathetic towards Republicanism!

It's so unfortunate that the English St George's Cross had been taken over by far-right extremists, who tend to fill football stadiums with their racist chanting against non-white players. Relegating black players to the level of monkeys is an insult as a direct result of Darwinism, itself having grown out of England's fertile soil.

Naga Munchetty

Being in such a state of mind on a national scale seems to have made any joke or comment against patriotism something of a threat to the nation's wellbeing, as did Meghan Markle's accusation of racism in the Royal Family. Just as Piers Morgan's loss of temper over that incident, so Munchetty's crack at Robert Jenrick's flag had rocked Amanda Platell's boat.

Perhaps 2 Chronicles 7:14 may provide a worthwhile piece of instruction for this sorrowful state of our nation: 

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

"My people" refers to the people of Israel who were under the reign of King Solomon. But this verse can be applied at present to the Church, itself a nation of born-again believers who are meant to be devoted to Jesus Christ. To my mind, the behaviour of some of these Christians, especially those who voted Leave, was and still is, appalling.  

Reading the Old Testament book of the prophet Daniel, chapter 9 and verses 4-19, provides an excellent template on what intercessory prayer for our nation should consist of. It is worth patterning our prayers to this template and with thanksgiving for God's goodness and mercy, bring our intercessory prayers to God with a sincere heart. 

Bread, Benefits, and Diamonds.

Fred wheeled himself out of the back door of his house to appreciate the lovely flowers in full bloom adorning his garden. He leans forward to reach out and enjoys the sweet aroma from one of the blooms. Unfortunately for him, out of the window of the house backing on to his, Deborah Ville gazes at Fred with a level of smug satisfaction.

Fred is a victim of a muscle disease which gradually restricted his mobility to a level where he had to be confined to a wheelchair. Having lost his ability to stand, walk and run, he lost his job as a contractor, and afterwards lost his wife too, still in her thirties, to a dishy colleague she met in the office, and to whom she fell in love. Fred, feeling angry and crushed by the loss of his spouse, also had to fight tooth and nail to claim his Disability Allowance, the only source of income with which he is able to live reasonably well.

Deborah is convinced that Fred is a Benefit cheat, milking on the taxes paid by hard-working professionals. As a sour-faced spinster, past middle age and who had never dated, and remaining childless throughout her life, she considers herself a model of moral idealism, and she can be seen at her traditional Church of England service every Sunday morning, dressed in her best finery and topped with her favourite decorated bonnet. She is disliked by her neighbours, and one of them overheard her giving her name to an official, as Miss D. Ville. No doubt, her nickname became known along the street, and so she remains referred to by her initial and surname.

Deborah turns back from her window before Fred has a chance to spot her. She heads for the 'phone and dials the DWP. She reports that this "disabled" Fred at such-and-such an address has been spotted as less disabled than he claims. A couple of weeks later, he receives a letter through the post announcing that his allowance has been stopped, as a result of a tip-off. Suspecting this might have been the work of Deborah Ville but unable to prove it, he heads back to the benefits office to prove his case. No success. He is analysed as fit to work, and he should consider himself lucky he did not face a Court prosecution. In the weeks to come, as he watches his bank account slowly diminish as both his stomach and the pursuing of his fuel creditors continue relentlessly with their demands, he looks for adequate employment, only to be turned away by one potential employer after another.

Deep depression sets in. He suffers loss of appetite and sleep. He turns on the radio to listen to the latest news bulletin. The headline was about the sale of two diamond jewels to a total of £50 million, bought at an auction by a Chinese businessman for his seven-year-old daughter. Never mind that this rich fellow had a five year prison term passed upon him for money-laundering. By staying out of the country where he was convicted, he can live on as normal, avoiding jail. All this to Fred was rubbing salt into the wound. He had already read about the fat cat lifestyle enjoyed by high flying management, especially of the Police, the banking industry, and the NHS, with their sky-high incomes, bonuses, golden pensions, and early retirement. Not to say good health as well, luxury yachts in the Mediterranean, round-the-world travel, posh cars, luxury homes away in the country and not among the terraced estate where he resides. Fred just could not understand why there is such gross inequality this day and age in the 21st Century. 

Fred felt his depression intensify as he watches his bank account go into negative equity. As he watches the figure with its minus sign in front grow bigger and bigger, so did his fears grew. After receiving yet another letter of rejection from a potential employer, he felt he had enough. With the pittance of a cash reserve he has always kept on the side, he buys a bus ticket to the coast, where there is a high cliff. Positioning himself, he wheels himself over the cliff edge, crashing onto the rocky strip of beach many feet below. Meanwhile, on the following Sunday, Deborah Ville makes her way to church, totally unaware of the recent tragedy. Feeling smug that she had fulfilled her moral duty, under the guise of prayer, she starts to thank herself for her high morals, not like that scum of a neighbour who milked the taxpayer with such a "dishonest" claim.

Although I have fictionalised the above story, I have wondered what God says of this when I read media statistics of not a few suicides among the disabled that had taken place due to situations similar to Fred's circumstances. As for Deborah; back in 2005, when I had to reduce my working hours to sit through a six-month parenting assessment, we claimed Housing Benefit until the assessment was over and I returned to full-time work. About three to four months into the assessment, we received a letter saying that not only the benefit had stopped, but we had to pay it all back, due to an anonymous tip-off. So began the tribunal defending our cause for claiming, and we lost the case. Fortunately, the benefit officer was a compassionate female who allowed us a three-year payback interval instead of the twelve-month period which was the norm for failed or dishonest claimants. At least I saw this as an act of mercy at a time of great distress, when the State decided that our mild autism, or Asperger's Syndrome, deemed us unfit to raise our own daughters.  

But I was praised even by our Social Worker for adopting the "Ethic of King Solomon." This was based on the Biblical story of the two prostitutes who presented themselves to King Solomon with a living infant and a dead one. Solomon had to decide who was the mother of the living child. Since each of the two women claimed that the living child was hers, the King ordered a sword to be brought to him, so he could divide the living child in two, so both can have half each. The real mother fell at the King's feet and begged him to give the living child to her rival, but not to kill him. Her rival instead agreed to the kill. Solomon then knew who was the real mother (1 Kings 3:16-28.)

The same is true for our three daughters. Although our hearts grieve over our loss, we now feel that it was better for our daughters to grow up in an environment where they would get the best of everything, rather than miss out under our care, loving and sincere as it might have been. But our hearts continue to grieve, and I believe that has affected the health of both of us. Alex had lost her full mobility, and has become lame. Although she can manage her housework without too much difficulty, whenever she goes outdoors, it has to be in a wheelchair. To see her in that state breaks my heart, but she is a lot more stoic than I am. She takes it all well in her stride. As for me, I would not be at all surprised if there may be a connection between the loss of our daughters and my heart condition. I needed open heart surgery to replace a regurgitating aortic valve. As a manual worker cleaning windows and the need to lift and transport heavy ladders on foot, (I don't drive) I have lost some of my vitality after the procedure. Fortunately, when my 63rd birthday came around just a few months later, I felt this was a good time for retirement, a move backed not only by our Church Elders, but by the majority of my clientele, even with the statement, "It is about time!" uttered by a couple of them.

To some who has always worked and have never been on benefits, I guess it is easy to believe those on benefits to be workshy scroungers, milking the taxpayer. I can understand Deborah's point of view, which is a view seen by many in our country. But to those thinking that retired life is all about ease and leisure, Pension Credit, which we are now receiving, is a benefit which is different to State Pension, which I'll get when I reach 65 years of age. My present benefit enslaves me somewhat to the extent that if my savings exceed £10,000, I have to tell them. Likewise if my wife is taken to hospital, a care home, divorces, or dies. We cannot leave the UK, even for a holiday, without first telling them (although we are not barred from leaving the UK). It is a bit like living on a knife edge. It makes me ashamed in a way, living off the taxpayer, even if I have paid tax throughout my working life. Sometimes I feel immoral by not working, although I comfort myself with the knowledge that 47 years of working since I left school in 1968, is generally longer than one who graduates at university at 21 or 22 years of age, and retires at sixty, after just 38 or 39 years sitting at a desk (although many who receive a doctorate work for even a shorter duration.)  

And here's the point. It was only two years ago that I felt confident enough in my health to work past 65 years of age. I had my own domestic window cleaning business which I was wholly committed to, and fiercely guarded against intrusion by rivals. So to be diagnosed with heart failure during the Summer of 2014 came as a real shocker, believe me! But now as a retiree, I can't help feel a sliver of guilt. Never mind that the Chinese businessman buying diamonds for his daughter is fact, making news headlines, and not fiction. Never mind that there are thousands of those in managerial positions who retire in their fifties with a massive pension. I still can't help feeling at times a sliver of guilt, combined with a feeling of insecurity.

But is benefits Biblical? I believe it is, and the relevant Scripture can be found at Leviticus 19:10 and 23:22, where both verses instructs landowners harvesting their crops, particularly of the vine, not to go back to glean what was left behind, but to leave these grapes for the poor to take freely. This has been written twice by Moses in the same book, emphasising the importance of such a command. This is God ensuring that the needs of the poor are met, and it should be done in love. Likewise, in the New Testament, Paul instructs Timothy to ensure the elderly widow's needs are met (1 Timothy 5:3-16). This is more in line with the present benefit system, but on condition that the widow has no family members to support her, and that she lives a godly life in Jesus Christ.

And that is how I should view the benefits system - as an act of compassion rather than compulsory giving. But then again, had my vocation had been in the office or non-manual, I guess I wouldn't have even considered retirement at this age. Instead, I would have returned to work after my heart operation, and not consider retirement until the proper time.

Especially if I was a jeweller working on expensive diamonds.

Sweeping around a Corner.

Retirement. It is so hard to believe that such a turning point would happen to me. Sure, I have seen it happen many, many times. Always to others of course. As for myself, how I could I have ever thought it would happen to me? Indeed, retirement gives me the opportunity to look back on my entire life.

Such as, I could recall in the most sharp memory images, when I was a young boy growing up in Pimlico, close to the north bank of the River Thames in London. Rollerskating up and down the quiet street, with far fewer cars parked along the kerbside than at present, this was one of two parallel streets forming an elongated rectangle, with both streets bearing the name of St. Georges Square. In between the two streets was a strip of public garden, fenced and gated. It was here where dog walkers brought their pooches while I kicked a ball across the long-disused area of hard tennis courts, which had their heyday before the War, and the adjoining area of lawn was ideal for picnics during the summer. And every year on November 5th, a giant bonfire dominated over thousands of fireworks let off by older children, many unsupervised by adults, yet according to my knowledge, there was no record of any accidents caused by misuse. Such was the 1950's and early sixties style of discipline.

Pimlico apartments where I grew up

One end of the street joined Grosvenor Road at a T-junction, where I only have to cross the main road to walk alongside the river. On the other side of the river, heavy industry hums away on its daily business, many of its buildings blackened with soot. The industrial estate was dominated by the four classical chimneys of Battersea Power Station, resembling the legs of an upturned table. Across the other side of Chelsea Bridge, the heavy industry on the south bank of the Thames gave way to Battersea Park, famous for its permanent Fun Fair, dominated by the Big Dipper, the largest wooden roller coaster on the site. Close by was the Water Chute, where a passing car speeding down a long incline threw water with powerful force onto a glass screen shielding us from a soaking.

How I loved standing by that screen as the water hits it just a few inches from where I stood. Outside the fairground but within the park, there was the Tree Walk, a long boardwalk suspended high in the trees, passing a building where inside, a room moved - throwing us from one side to the other, while near its roof a giant figure of Popeye stood, flexing his muscles, and next to him was his oppressor Brutus, who continually swayed to and fro in permanent laughter. The street where these amenities were located was lined with all manner of stalls, giving a permanent carnival feel. I also recall the miniature train, and a magnificent fountain display just outside the Fun Fair. Not to mention a couple of swing parks as well - Battersea Park really was a fun paradise! And the four chimneys of the nearby power station looked across the whole park as if silently supervising the area.

At present, Battersea Park is only a shadow of its former glory. Thanks to a fatal accident on the Big Dipper roller-coaster in May 1972, where five children were killed, the fair closed down and everything demolished and removed, including the boardwalk and all other facilities. Also all the stalls disappeared, and nothing would ever be the same again. Oh the highlights of childhood, devoid of responsibility, that early phase of life when owning a train set or Meccano was far more important to me than my parents earning enough to sustain a family. As Battersea Park metamorphosed from a fun paradise with a carnival atmosphere to an area of quiet greenery occupying a square hemmed in between Chelsea and Albert Bridges, so reaching teenage years involved the loss of that sense of innocence that comes only in the early years as more responsibilities takes over - especially after leaving school.

Battersea Fun Fair before 1972

Water Chute, Battersea Fun Fair

And here such a big change of life came in April 1968, at age fifteen years, when I left school with no qualifications, and landed a job at a family-owned business in manufacturing period furniture. And my very first task on that initial Monday morning? Picking up the broom leaning at a corner and sweeping the floor. Than having swept the floor of one department, I had to repeat the process at an adjoining shop floor. Every weekday morning began with the sweeping. I did not feel bad about that, as back then it was the accepted routine carried out by every school leaver who had failed to achieve any educational levels, let alone a university degree. Although pushing a broom was very humbling among a workforce of skilled craftsmen, I believe it was the broom which transformed the boy into a man, rather than at school.

But I was always perceived as different. Everyone at work made sure that I knew my place, at the bottom rung of the ladder, and they made sure I stayed there. And somehow I was made aware that I as an Italian was seen as inferior to the British, even if I was actually born in England myself. The War was often mentioned, with their boasting that it was won by the British, with the Italian forces relegated to uselessness in military conflicts. The truth - which they made sure remained quiet - was that the War was won by the Allies, with the U.S. fighter 'plane Elona Gay dropping the first atom bomb on the Japanese island of Hiroshima, thus ending the conflict when Japan surrendered. By heck, I wish that I knew all this as an adolescent while sweeping the floor! Such knowledge would have been a weapon in its own right to shut the mouths of everyone in the factory.

Do I want to write a self-pitying dirge? No way! Rather as an opportunity to glorify God, along with the liberating power of the Gospel. And how comforting to know that there is a Strong Tower into which the righteous run into, and they are safe. Now as one retiring, I can look back at my working life, and calculate that, of the 47 years since leaving school, only less than six years of production didn't involve time spent cleaning. This was when I worked in a precision engineering firm between October 1973 to June 1979. All other times involved cleaning, even as a pool lifeguard earlier in 1973, when I had to mop down the pool edge walkway, and even jumped in to scrub off the scum from the safety rail within the pool's edge. This was done early in the morning before the amenity opened to the public. Then from August 1980, after trying out various other jobs including a few months in a warehouse, I eventually became self-employed in domestic window cleaning, which kept me going for the next 35 years.

Living in a country where social class is such an obsession can really be disheartening. As I watched one former Prime Minister shout Education! Education! during Parliament, I have seen the obsession among young people of both genders become enthralled with the possibility of achieving their A* Level which would open the door to University. Their obsession is as if their lives depended on it. Let's face it; imagining themselves sitting at an office desk in front of a computer, and maybe with a telephone as well, is far, far more appealing to these young students than the thought of pushing a broom in a noisy factory shop floor.

Only today (Saturday) an article appeared in a national newspaper, which was written by a Psychiatrist, criticising the appalling bureaucracy which has such a hold on the National Health Service. He relates a story out of personal experience about an elderly female patient who had fallen from her bed, and as she lay on the floor, she called for help while wedged between the bed and the bedside cabinet. Her cries was heard by a nurse who sat at her desk, taking her coffee break and ignoring the patient's calls. When the doctor summoned her to help in lifting her back to her bed, the nurse refused. The situation was resolved when a visitor entered the ward and assisted the elderly woman back to her bed.

The Psychiatrist explained that the nurse was a victim of a system where a university degree is now essential to enter the profession. This has developed a culture of "Too posh to wipe" - a bad attitude - confirmed by one of my clients who works as a nurse herself - where such graduates believe that wiping a patient's bottom is far too menial to merit their degree. The writer then explained about the ambition of many a young nurse to climb the career ladder into Management, where she enters the office staffed with men in suits and who had never handled a stethoscope, and yet were responsible for meeting financial targets and destroying the compassion towards patients, which was the whole object for having the N.H.S. in the first place.

Swimming pool where I was lifeguard in 1973

The man in a suit who has never pushed a broom in his entire working life. How much I wanted to be one myself so many years ago, perhaps because that was what my parents would have liked me to have become. The suit, a symbol of high education levels and career success. Held in reverence by society as a whole, even by some manual workers. Instead, I was shown my place and kept there. Despite my knowledge of the Bible, accumulated over the years, I was never permitted to teach or exhort. I recall one of the Elders, who is not with us anymore, who answered my request to teach a class by saying that someone else was better qualified for that role. Better qualified? Because he worked in an office? Then this blog page. When this was typed, my total score of hits topped 51,000. At first this looks healthy. But I was tempted to change my blogger name to Dr. F. E. Blasi. If I had, chances that the total score of hits might have been closer to 100,000. But I would be deceiving my readers. Lying is not exactly godly. Then again, the general flow of all my blogs does not reflect those written by a doctor. I believe that many readers would have seen through the ruse.

So I look back at 47 years as a manual labourer, with the last 35 years as self-employed. Now I'm entering retirement. Unfulfilled ambitions? Rather, I believe that pushing a broom across the floor was very beneficial psychologically. The feeling of humility, I believe, was the key in converting to faith in Jesus Christ. It was the driving force to grasp knowledge of the Bible, and to plead with my Maker for the Big Picture of God's entire revelation. Faith in Jesus and Bible reading has inspired me to visit Israel as early as 1976, which opened the door to world travel. Faith in Jesus had always been the backbone of feeling content about living in rented accommodation instead of home ownership, and riding a bicycle instead of driving a fast car. Faith in Jesus as Saviour has put life in its proper perspective, not to chase riches here on Earth, but to store them in Heaven. It has helped me from envying other people's good fortune or higher social position, knowing that the same fate awaits us all.

Battersea Park was indeed a fun paradise for families. In a way, the whole park was a reflection of Heaven - a place of joy, happiness, a cessation from worry, anxieties. It was a place of rest, to refresh the soul. True Heaven will have all this and much more. It will be eternal, a place of everlasting joy.

But to get there, I had to trust in Jesus Christ - his death, burial, and resurrection.

To help me towards faith in Jesus as Lord and Saviour, it was necessary to stoop low and push a broom in full view of all my betters. 

When God spoke to me...

I have arrived at one of the biggest crossroads of my life. This very weekend I officially retire from full time work, a permanent ceasing after 47 years of earning a living since April 1968, including 35 years as a self employed domestic window cleaner. It will feel strange, even if I most likely take on an occasional job from time to time, such as cleaning the windows of a friend's house, or even willing to emulsion the walls of someone's bedroom (the very last paid job completed as a bachelor before I married 48 hours later). Or maybe giving a hand at midweek church arrangement - unpaid, but enjoying fellowship whilst volunteering - really, anything to get out of the house daily. For the idea of retiring from full time work was inspired by the thorough enjoyment I'd experienced while on convalescence from February this year, all three months of it, and to tell the truth, the need to return to work in June had broken my heart. 

One of the benefits of the convalescence period was the strengthening of our marriage. The ability to be at hand whenever Alex needed me gave her a far greater sense of assurance than when I was out of the house from morning to evening every weekday. But I have never disliked my work, especially as one self employed. I now smile at this, but I recall having a chat with one of my clients, and telling him how wonderful to be the human boss of the business, and as such, the underlying secret of its longevity. Human boss? I wonder what my client thought of that statement? I doubt that he had ever met a non-human boss. Or perhaps he has met quite a few! But for me at least, I acknowledged that the true Boss was God himself, and I was merely a steward of the responsibilities the occupation consisted.

But to divorce Mondays from Sundays is wrong, I believe. With many a church-goer, a typical week may looks something like this:

Sunday - Devotion to God. Monday-Friday - Work and responsibilities. Saturday - Day off.

Such a way of living, subconscious as it may be, may surprise a person when the Lord suddenly cuts in during the week. So I recall such an unforgettable Monday morning of October 1992. That was the morning I had a vision to visit Jerusalem during the following year to pray over the city. Up till then, for the last twelve years, I was struggling financially to make ends meet. That year, I was fortunate enough to accompany a mate to the Lake District National Park up north in Cumbria, a typically average break in those days. Then from that very morning onward, I was able to put away £20 every week for ten months. This gave me more than enough to spend a full two weeks in Israel, staying at a backpacker's hostel in the heart of Jerusalem Old City. Since then, I have experienced a dramatic change in lifestyle. From the same line of work, I was able to return to Israel a year later in 1994, where I stood on the summit of the Mount of Olives, overlooking the city from the east. It was at that moment that I had a sudden inspiration to backpack the United States exactly a year later, opening the door to further travel, including Singapore and Australia in 1997.

This is the grace of God expressed through love. Looking back, I am now convinced that the vision I had that dreary Autumn morning was from God, simply because of the resulting change in my life.

Grace - Gift Received At Christ's Expense. What other language can such an acronym be applied to such a beautiful word? That is what grace is about, isn't it? Receiving good things without deserving them, let alone attempting to earn them. And the greatest demonstration of grace is found in Luke 11:13. Here Jesus, who is addressing a crowd he calls evil, promises the Holy Spirit to fill anyone who simply asks. That is grace. For someone with an evil heart to be filled with the Holy Spirit. No if's or but's. God's grace overcomes evil. The Holy Spirit enters an evil, unregenerate heart and regenerates it, making the person a new creation and adopts him into God's own family. That's why I believe in the "sinner's prayer" - asking Jesus to come into the heart. It is synonymous with asking for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three in one Godhead, the Holy Trinity.

I was reading the Old Testament book of Job just the other day, and what his young friend Elihu had to say about God's grace was quite intriguing. For he says,
If it were (God's) intention and withdrew his spirit and breath,
all mankind would perish together and man would return to the dust.
Job 34:14-15.

This brings me to mind of a newspaper article about a book recently released, Magicians Of the Gods, by Graham Hancock, who also wrote Fingerprints of the Gods which sold over a million copies worldwide. In Magicians, Hancock uses various ancient prophecies from non-Biblical sources as evidence that within the next twenty years a comet will pass within the Earth's gravitational pull, explode in the upper atmosphere, and its impact on the planet will wipe out all life, including mankind, parallel to the supposed impact of an asteroid which had eliminated all dinosaurs some sixty million years ago.

Perhaps there is only one Biblical reference to this kind of disaster, and it's found in Revelation 8:8-11. Here, two large bodies from space falls to the Earth. The first is "something like a huge mountain, ablaze, was thrown into the sea." The second, "a great star, blazing like a torch" fell on land, most likely in the Middle East, while the first fell into the Mediterranean. This looks to me like one comet or asteroid which broke into two and the friction with the air caused them both to become incandescent. But neither brings the whole of mankind to extinction, but rather only one third of all sea creatures in the Mediterranean, along with just a third of all mariners who were unfortunate enough to be within its impact zone. Likewise, the second fragment poisons the rivers, and according to Revelation 9:1, the impact caused a cloud to cover the land, darkening the sun and moon.

Very much like that of a volcano blowing its top, as with the case of Krakatoa in August 1883. This explosion has killed up to 36,000 people, many by the resulting tsunamis, and darkness lasting for three days covering an area of 275 miles 442 km. For such an event as this, the explosion did not wipe out the whole of the human race, and it looks like the asteroid of Revelation would have a very similar effect, but it will not make the human race extinct. And that is because of the grace of God.

And here is where I believe authors such as Graham Hancock had got it wrong. Because of the grace of God, life on Earth as we know it will never be destroyed by a comet or asteroid impact. And it was both Abraham and the prophet Jeremiah who gives the reasons. Abraham was interceding for Sodom not to be destroyed if there were as little as ten righteous people living in the city. God assured him that the presence of just ten righteous persons would be enough to save the whole city (Genesis 18:16-33).

Jeremiah wrote that the very existence of the Earth and the Universe as a whole hangs upon the promise God has made with Abraham's descendants, the nation of Israel. In Jeremiah 33:19-26 for example, it is God himself who reassures the distressed prophet, who had watched his beloved city Jerusalem fall into the hands of the Babylonians, that unless the divine covenant with the day and with the night can be broken, God will never reject the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is the wonderful promise of his grace, that the very existence of Israel guarantees the ongoing life for the entire planet.

To believe the Gospel saves us from such anxieties - comet impact, volcanic eruptions, rising sea levels, tsunamis, a mass pandemic, worldwide famine, or anything that could wipe out the whole of mankind on a universal scale. Because of God's grace, it will not happen. And amazing enough, it was God's grace that had saved my life, literally three times when I was a youth, including a daring challenge to swim out to the end of the pier at a seaside resort. About halfway, it turned out that the tidal current was so strong that I found myself drifting towards the support structs of the pier itself, and I grabbed and held on to a girder, or else the current would have sucked me under. It was only through another swimmer, older and stronger than myself, who gave me line-by-line instructions to get me back onto the beach, which had saved my life. The grace of God has triumphed.

Remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways; according to your love remember me, for you are good, O LORD.
Psalm 25:7.

Since God's grace has sustained me from the day of conception to this day, why should I fear and worry over the future, particularly in the financial area? As this is a huge turning point in my life, it is so tempting, and quite reasonable too, to ask, What now? Experience has already shown that claiming benefit, in this case Pension Credit, as I am still two years under 65, has been a fickle affair, with a maze of clauses and conditions that can trip me up, in this case forcing me back to work after telling all my clientele of my retirement. How embarrassing! How much of a prat would I feel? Trusting in the goodness of God brings peace. Realising that all things work for the good for those who love him, who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28). If the benefit claim fails, and I have to return to work, I'll be bitterly disappointed, but I will also be aware that God not only knows about it, but he is sovereign. Everything is for a good reason.

May I close with a request for prayer, that all will go to plan, and I indeed can retire from full time work with God's blessing. And may God bless you all.