Yes, So It's Winter - Yet Again...

Oh, the joys of Winter! I remember at one point before retirement, indeed, even before 2010, I sat on a low wall on a particularly cold day. The ladders lay on the sidewalk, the bucket of warm water also stood nearby. There I sat, shivering with cold, yet a strong sense of envy was eating me up and draining my energy from work. And it was only ten in the morning.

That's the advantage of having been a self-employed domestic window cleaner. Under my own steam, I can just sit there and indulge in my own despot of envy, allowing vivid images of the check-in desk at Heathrow Airport, and visualising four people preparing to board their flight to Singapore. As I sat there alone, at least for once I was grateful for not sitting in a busy office under the eye of a controlling bully of a boss. Instead, as it was, I was able to sit alone at a quiet housing estate, mulling at my thoughts and comparing the expectations of these four, consisting of two courting couples, with my own past experiences of world travel.

Window Cleaning, my former trade.

The two young men I knew personally. They were lifeguards of a local leisure pool in which features the spa suite, a facility I visited regularly every week, and my patronage there going as far back as 1992. One of them, Adam by name, was so proficient and so well skilled at his job, that he featured in our local newspaper, The Bracknell News. as the centre's best ever lifeguard. It was he, along with another mate and their girlfriends, who quit his job as a lifeguard to take a sabbatical Round-the-World backpacking trip featuring Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the USA.

Weeks of buildup led to that day, with Adam and I being friends on Facebook, I was able to post my own RTW experiences on the social site. But as I sat there mulling over my thoughts, I was wondering how sensitive some people could be. Here was a proficient lifeguard whose knowledge on lifesaving wasn't far below that of a paramedic, when he got offended with my jokey comment that the Sea Wasp is a jellyfish and not an insect. 

As a result, he quickly severed his ties with me, or "unfriended" me, and it has always remained a mystery to me how I had offended him. However, he did deliver some public posts informing us all that although he loved the Australian Pacific Coast, he wasn't impressed with New Zealand. As for the Great Barrier Reef, I can't recall any mention of it. Had his awareness of the Sea Wasp stung his usual confidence in the water? And to add to this, my realisation that Queensland during its summer months is subject to monsoons. Bah! No matter how hard I tried to shake off my envy of them by thinking about these things, I could still feel it.

Eventually, I got around the situation, got up and resumed work. Coming to think of it, the expenditure of physical energy cleaning windows is psychologically benefiting as well as keeping blood flowing through the muscles and creating body heat, a good combatant against cold weather. The Sea Wasp, better known as box jellyfish with their deadly sting, are in abundance at that time of the year. However, it's their inclusion of New Zealand basking in summer sunshine that has aroused my envy, with the salt of unfriending me just before take-off, adding to the wound.

On that particular day, I was working at an estate which has a high number of senior citizens. Throughout my business, I saw that pensioners made the best customers. I had found them to be more warm-hearted towards this lone itinerant tradesman, more generous with coffee and a biscuit, in addition, they were more trusting when allowing me into their kitchens to refill my pail, and they were never hesitant with payment or unnecessarily delaying to pay me. A few even got me to sit at their table after all their windows were cleaned, for coffee, a sandwich and a good chat. With such a friendly environment they gave me, it didn't take long for me to forget about those boys flying halfway around the world.

But working outdoors during winter was challenging. There was one street where nearly all its residents were at work, leaving each property empty of people, although an occasional dog barked. During the summer or when the air was mild, I was okay with that. But I recall one bitterly-cold Winter's day. With everyone out, I served one empty property after another. There was no source of fresh hot water. Indeed, I felt my hands turn blue with the cold as I kept on dipping them in cold, dirty water. I recall then packing everything away and going home early, during mid-afternoon. A refill with hot, clean water would have made all the difference!

And now, I read in a national newspaper that there is such thing as the most depressing day of the year, and it's either a Monday or a Tuesday in early January. I never heard of that before. I wonder where they got that from? However, perhaps the thought of the next quarter of long nights, short days, cold weather, the threat of a thin layer of snow bringing the country to a halt...

If that didn't have such an impact on our lives, I guess I would see the funny side. If the Council - heaven forbid - should forget to grit the roads beforehand or have not watched the Met Office forecast, then the chaos resulting when roads and their intersections turn into skid pans... hardly worth thinking about. Furthermore, trains were known to become marooned and even aeroplanes may not be able to take off. The fear or concern generated by the threat of a snowflake falling makes any anticipation for Spring more intense, along with catching flu or even a common cold, those dark days, long nights and the chilly wind from the Northeast - they all come around, year in, year out, but with the universal surprise it brings, I sometimes wonder whether it's the first time I realise that this cold season is annual.

Coral Reef Sauna Suite, my haunt since 1992.

Perhaps, it's since during Winter here in the UK, it's not every day that I open the bedroom curtains first thing in the morning to see a layer of falling snow covering our garden lawn, and lining the branches of the surrounding trees and bushes spectacularly. Yet, despite all the inconveniences posed upon modern transportation, such a wintry scene is so beautiful, so spectacular. The brilliance of the snow reflecting all the daylight back into the air makes even the contrast with the dull, overcast sky quite notable. Should the sky clear and the sun comes out, then how dazzling the scene is when romanticised into Christmas card fantasy.

And so I ponder at the mode of transport before the invention of the steam engine when horses ruled the day. These mammals were not afraid of the snow, they were able to pull the cart as easily as any Summer's day. No wheels were spinning on an icy patch while the vehicle remains stationary with the engine revving, filling the air behind it with a cloud of toxic fumes. There were no traffic queues stuck on the motorway with drivers phoning their bosses with an apology and a lame explanation why they will be late - if ever arriving at all. No, the guy sitting in a horsedrawn chariot overtakes them all as his beast trots happily along with the snow, leaving a trail of hoof-marks and cartwheel tracks behind.

Yet, from my bedroom window, I can admire the view of the snow-covered garden and ponder on why this stuff is so brilliantly white while any rainwater forming a puddle on concrete or on anything non-porous is as clear as crystal. Indeed, anyone who is good scientific knowledge can explain how water, when it freezes into accumulated snowflakes turns the whole scene brilliant white rather than remaining clear, yet even science can fail to explain why this happens, the beauty of each flake as it falls to the ground, each flake unique in itself, every one different - despite the vast numbers of them needed to cover a large field.

All this causes me to thank and glorify God for his creation rather than curse my fate at the steering wheel. Not that I can drive anyway - I have never owned a car driving licence, let alone a car itself. But as the snow on the road turns into dirty slush by a combination of partial melting and traffic pollution, I can't help but to wish away everything frozen, except ice cream of course, and long for Spring to arrive. After all, one of the positives to ponder on during this cold season is that the winter solstice is already behind us and the days are already becoming longer and the nights shorter. Furthermore, the Earth is at its perihelion, that is, it's closer to the sun in its orbit. No wonder Down Under, the Aussies has to apply a liberal amount of suncream on their bronzed torsos, else that dreaded mole will start burying into the skin, indicating Melanoma.

And so, another Winter's day arrives and with it, The Daily Mail national newspaper carries a story on two of its inside pages:

£44m Brexit success story to make Remoaners choke on their sea bass.*

The two-page article was written by journalist Robert Hardman in his How I see it series of articles. Checking on the text itself, Hardman himself does not use the word Remoaners, but Remainers. As far as the mechanics of the Press goes, the writer doesn't title his contribution. Rather, that's done by the editors. That is, by the newspaper itself. Indeed, I'm tempted to ask them, Is the Winter chill addling your brains?

As one who voted my support to remain in the European Union, the use of the word Remoaner in 2cm high lettering is an insult. I find it insulting because the word is purely detrimental. Furthermore, this isn't merely between two people talking in private. Rather, it's for the whole world to read.

And so, as the cold winter wind blows and blizzards are driven across the UK, those who voted to leave the EU will, sooner or later, find something to prove their point. And when one item is found, so the gloating begins. They look down on us Remainers with a condescending look as they turn up their noses, and if that's not enough, they then publicly insult us! Not a nice Christian attitude, is it? I wonder how Jesus would have reacted had he been around at present?

Earlier in the week, I emailed a message to two Christian people with a suggestion that an unclean spirit in the air has influenced Brexiteers with such subtlety, according to Ephesians 6:12, that even committed Christians who want to serve the Lord were also hoodwinked. With one of the recipients, that didn't go down well. But then, when I emailed those two, the headline hadn't yet appeared. 

Traffic slowed down by snow.

In an analogical sense, with the pandemic, lockdowns, hospitalisations, along with xenophobic, even racist attitudes, including physical and verbal violence, thus driving many Europeans back to their homelands, indeed, it's been a bleak winter - one that lasted for the past two years.

If we're about to go over the hill with the pandemic, at least there is, at last, hope that Spring is on its way.

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*Daily Mail Newspaper, Saturday, January 8th 2022, pages 50-51.

Theism v. Atheism in the Steam Room.

Funny, coming to think of it, only last week I wrote about how many things in life had changed over time, and the pandemic had speeded up various changes, especially the decline of the "club culture" at our local sauna facility.

Yet, only yesterday, I found myself sitting in the steam room with two other fellows, one looking to be a Brit in his forties, or even in his fifties, who I will refer to as Mick, the other was a Serbian immigrant in his late twenties or early thirties whose parents moved to Germany, and he then came over to live in the UK. As the Brit was quite inquisitive about how his parents had coped with the Croatian/Serbian wars that ended the State of Yugoslavia by 1992. Not that he had to cope with the break-up of the country back then, as he either wasn't yet born, or he must have been very young at the time. Yet, Mick still asked if the young man was able to cope whilst he was still in Serbia.

Inside a typical steam room.

That's was when I joined in their chat, reviving the nostalgia of days gone past of a better social life at the facility. The conversation between the three of us went something like this - my own speech quoted in italics:-

Me: Mick, can I share this true story? When I was at a hostel in the Holy Land, I found myself chatting to a couple of fellow backpackers. They were asking me where I was from.

When I said that I was from near London, they looked so flabbergasted! One of them then asked, "London? Isn't that where there's was a lot of bombings - from the IRA, I believe?"

I burst out laughing. "No, I was never fortunate enough to witness a bombing!" I replied to them. "It's amazing how one or two isolated incidents can so easily damage the reputation of any location. But be assured, London is just as safe a city to be in like any other."

Mick: "You've been to Israel? How long were you there for?"

Me: Well, I went quite a few times. But if I were to string these trips together to become one, it would total almost five months - or 20 weeks.

Mick: "Are you religious?"

Me: Well, put it this way, erm, I know Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour. I have known Him for the last fifty years or so.

Mick: "Well, I'm an atheist. As in Life of Brian, I don't have to follow anyone or anything, and I don't like religion forced down my throat. 

Me: What had made you an atheist?

Mick: As I was growing up, I saw a growing conflict between religion and science. As a boy, I had to attend Sunday School, even if my parents weren't churchgoers. But it was later in life I saw that these religious myths did not match scientific facts, like Evolution. Hence, I switched. However, where did you stay in Israel?"

Me: I stayed at a backpacker's hostel in Jerusalem Old City. Over there, you really experience a different culture. As an example, over here, our hostels have separate dorms for each gender. Over there, I slept in a room shared with and surrounded by couples, many sleeping arm-in-arm. 

On another occasion, at a private wedding reception, I watched a live sheep thrashing its legs after having its throat cut and skinned whilst still alive, with its blood flowing to a nearby drain. At least the meat was so fresh when cooked and served! We all sat in a circle and helped ourselves from a large central plate. There was no table or chairs. We all sat in a circle on the ground. That is what travel is all about. Not those Spanish Costa del Sunny or whatever, where you spend your time at an English-style pub!

Mick and the Serbian both laughed.

Me: But most intriguing of all is when I visited the site of the Cave of Machpelah in Hebron, the burying place of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their wives Sarah, Rebekah and Leah. It's within the Palestinian territory. If you click, "Cave of Machpelah" on Google, it will come up straight away. A fortress is built over it, and I actually went inside! To think that Herod the Great built it before the birth of Christ. Whilst the whole of Jerusalem was razed to the ground in AD 79 by Roman General Titus, this fortress remained intact throughout, its 2,100-year history, give or take, served as a church, a synagogue and a mosque. In one sense, it's a sentinel commemorating the origin of Israel as a nation. No other country in the world has a sentinel like this one to mark its origins! It certainly upholds the truthfulness of the Bible.

As one story goes, an atheist approached a farmer he knew to be a devoted Christian. The atheist then challenged the farmer by asking, "Can you show me one tangible proof that the Bible is true?"

"Aye sir, the Jew!"

Later, Mick and I found ourselves sitting in the sauna cabin, and we discussed our travels further. This time, I expanded worldwide, including hiking the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River, and snorkelling over the Great Barrier Reef and also in the Red Sea at Eilat. Mick became excited as he explained that he holds a PADI certificate for diving instructors. We exchanged our travel experiences further until it was almost time for me to leave. It was then when Mick suddenly asked,

"Do you attend church?" 

To which I replied, Yes, I attend Ascot Life Church. We meet in the Old Paddock Restaurant. So many of us are meeting together that we've outgrown our original building. So we had to hire a venue twice the size to meet in.

Finally, just as I was about to walk out of the cabin for the cool-down shower, I made this parting shot:

If the Resurrection of Jesus Christ had never occurred, then why are we still talking about it some two thousand years later?

Food for thought for Mick, maybe?

The Sentinel of Israel, the Cave of Machpelah.

The world of Travel. How I loved to travel, especially before I married Alex. Since I didn't marry until I was 47 years old, I had plenty of time for that on my hands. Whether it was standing solemnly in front of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, hiking a trail in the wilderness, or shaking hands with Micky Mouse at Disneyland, the purpose of travel was, and always will be, to explore our fantastic planet that surrounds my home town.

When I was converted to Christ as Saviour back in late 1972, immediately I developed an interest in the Bible as I began to read it. The one feature I come to discover by reading the Old Testament was that gradually, Jerusalem grew in prominence, especially after King David had captured the former Jebusite city, defeating its indigenous inhabitants and then setting up his throne there as King of Israel. As David was the ancestor of Jesus Christ himself, it was the Lord who openly declared to his audience that Jerusalem is the City of the Great King, that is, the Son of God himself (Matthew 5:35) who will return to reign on his father King David's throne.

Hence the inspiration to visit this particular city for the first time in 1976, then again in 1993, 1994 and finally, with my beloved in 2000. It was in 1976 when I attended the Arab wedding Reception. Also, in 1976 and in 1993 as well, I waded through a 2,700-year old tunnel which is a 530-metre long water chute dug through a solid limestone hill they call Mt Moriah. I also stood inside the Dome-of-the-Rock located on Temple Mount. Below its floor, there is a chamber where the summit of the original mountain remains intact, and it's where Abraham was ready to offer up his son Isaac, according to tradition. I stood by that rock with awe!

As I stood outside the golden Dome, admiring its beauty and holding a fascination over me for being on the very site of Solomon's Temple, and also an area Jesus was also familiar with, thoughts began to enter my mind on why this Islamic structure was allowed to be built at this precise spot. If this edifice was never built, then the Jews might have built their Third Temple, prompting the return of Jesus Christ to reign from Jerusalem and marking the end of the present age. The Dome quite literally blocked all this from happening, as it was not the time. In addition to this sobering truth was that - had the Temple rebuilding had occurred during the first millennium AD, we today would not even exist, let alone know God personally. Therefore, it can be said that the presence of the Dome-of-the-Rock blocking the rebuilding of the Temple will allow Heaven to be fully populated by those having faith who are still unborn.

Oh, how wonderful I felt when I thought about these things! These thoughts gave me a new perception of human history and Biblical revelation. And all this is contained in one word - Travel.

Looking back, I could discern a pattern, the putting together of a beautiful picture, like a jig-saw puzzle. By visiting Israel, especially in 1993, had opened the door for worldwide travel in the years that followed. And the combined reasons are a search for adventure and to appreciate our planet in both the natural and man-made structure - inspired by the God-created human brain. Hence, falling in love with the Grand Canyon, snorkelling over the corals of the Great Barrier Reef with its sandy cays held in place by tropical vegetation, hiking through the eucalyptus trees and the rainforest of the Blue Mountains National Park, gazing at the mangrove trees whose roots are submerged in the sea or river estuary, watching tiny shrimp happily thriving in Salt Lake of Utah, the rows of Traveller's Palms lining the theme park of Sentosa Island, standing by the majestic Niagara Falls...

Thus, I regard Travel as a privilege, a wonderful privilege indeed! And something that didn't come cheap at all, but I had to work hard for, the efforts to save up and economise with this for the goal to be reached, experienced, enjoyed, and to be treasured in both memory and photo albums for life.

Travel is one kettle of fish. But there is another - jet-setting - as I call it. With those who jet-set, they are not flying out to experience the natural beauty and the historical riches of this planet. Instead, they fly out to complete an errand, such as visiting a relative, attending a wedding, a baptism, or even a funeral.

Surely, all good in itself isn't it?

I may work hard to fly over a great distance to admire a particular location. Furthermore, throughout my travels, there was no viral pandemic in which I could pass a pathogen to others and infect them. When I arrived back in the UK, there is no thought of quarantine at a hotel, no need to take expensive tests to see whether I'm infected or not. No need for paperwork to prove that I'm fully vaccinated. There was no need for any of that. There was no pandemic. I was clean when I left the UK, I was clean when I arrived back. And I knew it. 

But jetting around the world to fulfil an errand is, to me, cheapens travel to mere convenience. To fly around the world to visit Mum or attend her daughter's baptism or her funeral sounds like a very noble idea. Pre-pandemic, I would have thought nothing of it. But now, a new variant of Covid, the Omicron virus was brought into this country from South Africa by infected people sitting in a jet plane after, say, attending a friend's wedding. And that has made me very cross; the forfeiture of our freedoms and the onset of restrictions due to flying during a pandemic.

As I'm now obliged to wear a wretched mask to cover my face whilst out and about, once again there is a possibility of another Christmas cancelled. In addition, Parliament had just announced that face-to-face consultation with a doctor has been put on hold to speed up the booster rollout. Thus, you better not feel a lump in your breast or suffer heart failure, nor hope for the long-anticipated procedure to end that agonising hip joint pain. All these are now put on hold, especially for senior citizens, so the younger set - who have stronger immune systems - can receive their boosters at a quicker pace.

And travel is cheapened to a mere errand. Instead of spending months, even years working hard to save up for that dream trip, instead, on the spur of the moment, money is easily drawn out of their vast savings to fly halfway around the world to watch a cricket match - as if nipping to the shops for a moment to buy a loaf of bread.

Although well-educated, due to their professional careers, there is plenty of money at their disposal and too much time on their hands, but far too little sense for considerate thinking. Still, that's how wonderful it is to be middle-class. A lifestyle very different to mine, where I was born with a wooden spoon in my mouth rather than a silver one. From my background, I had to learn to appreciate all good things gracefully, fully aware that I couldn't and never will, take anything for granted, especially the wonderful privilege to travel.

Sauna Nostalgia and the Pandemic.

And so, we're at the tail end of the Coronavirus pandemic. As I look back over nearly two years, how could I ever forget the need to queue up outside a grocery superstore? Back then, beginning around Easter of 2020 and into the summer months following, how could I ever believe that the time had come that I had to queue up to get into a shop and a large one at that? Indeed, had we entered the apocalyptic age of human history and the whole world is about to blow?

Superstore queue during a lockdown. Stock photo.

Added to that, our local Leisure Centre had shut down, all the so-called "non-essential" shops were closed, along with all the pubs, bars, restaurants, coffee houses...not to mention offices of all kinds empty of their City employees and their bosses...

The town centre was deserted, the streets were quiet, there was little traffic. Even London's busiest streets, such as Regent Street, Oxford Street, Piccadilly Circus, and Hyde Park Corner were all deserted, empty of traffic. It was as if the planet had rid itself of all people - every single individual alive had suddenly vanished - very much like in our home video documentary, Life After People, where the world population was zero, and featuring how the natural elements of sun, wind and rain continued in their destructive work unhindered by any human restorative activity. 

Within a few days after all people have vanished and the population is down to zero, every electric bulb and bar lighting blinks off, along with all neon street adverts, every fan stops rotating, every refrigerator shuts down, all industrial water pumps and power generators cease functioning - every form of power-driven machinery, both domestic and industrial, small and large, shuts down and draws to an eternal standstill - creating a deep, haunting, global silence.

In a course of time, every skyscraper in an advanced state of dereliction collapses into a huge cloud of dust, very much like how the World Trade Center collapsed into a massive cloud of smoke and dust after the 9/11 New York attack in 2001. London's Tower Bridge falls into the River Thames, the Elizabeth Tower housing Big Ben, already a few degrees off vertical at present, falls headlong onto Parliament Square, all the Underground tube and cut-and-cover lines and their stations become flooded, and unless also flooded by the river, all the streets would turn into wild garden strips, with an occasional shell of a car consumed by rust remain to be seen and ignored by any passing wild beast.

And wild beasts would wander through deserted streets overgrown with greenery, even trees, with derelict buildings on each side, collapsing into rubble piling on what used to be sidewalks. The domesticated characteristic of dogs that escaped from their man-made confinements, would breed out over the generations and wander around the streets as wolverine packs, always in search of escaped cattle that had grazed through the streets into town.

Hundreds of thousand years after people, anyone landing on our planet from an alien world would never guess that mankind once inhabited our planet, as all human constructions would have disappeared entirely - with thick forests with all its abundant wildlife inhabiting the tropical, the subtropical and the temperate climate zones of our planet, with the two Polar icecaps restored to their original size, and the oceans teeming with marine life, including species once threatened with extinction now thriving.

Perhaps, the sight of some stones piled in some odd manner might be an indication of long-past intelligent design, but such a theory remains debatable among these aliens - in much the same way we humans debate whether the undersea "Bimini Road" in the Atlantic Ocean is a natural formation or an ancient construction. That is until they wander across Egypt and notice three pyramids buried in the sand, with just their pinnacles showing. But the catch-all surety of intelligent design is the gigantic head of the Sphinx, not far from the Pyramids, also sticking out of the desert sand.

And so, I ponder as I stood in the queue whilst waiting to enter Sainsbury's superstore. The first lockdown caused by the Coronavirus had brought the world to a standstill - all by a minute virus! I guess my thoughts also go back to a TV drama series where almost the entire world population was wiped out by a virus, but unlike Life After People, a remnant of humanity had immune systems which resisted and fought the virus, enabling them to repopulate the Earth after the demise of its former civilisation - rather like Noah's family after the Deluge.

I find it amazing how a minute virus can halt civilisation in a dramatic manner no politician could ever achieve! Before then, I recall the freedom we so much took for granted. The sauna was one example.

I recall 1976, not long after having flown the nest when I was talking to a work colleague who spoke much about the sauna and its benefits. Being an avid fan of Queen's Park Rangers FC, Tony was one of several working-class men who frequented the facility, all of them older than me and therefore, rather intimidating for a skinny sauna neophyte who, once again, had to accept their culture of coarse language and crude toilet jokes. Therefore, for my accountant friend and graduate to refer to all sauna bathers as "sissies" - or as he often refers to as "woofters" - would have put his own safety in serious jeopardy in their presence! 

However, my accountant friend might also have a point. During those early days, the customer changed out of his day clothes in a large single room, lined with individual lockers. The changing room was shared by all. Then, the facility had two sauna cabins, one right next to each other, a steam room housed in a plastic cabin, and a very cold plunge pool. At its reception, manned by elderly Fred who was respected by everyone, lemon tea was purchased and consumed at the large resting room, itself furnished with reclining beds, adjoining the main sauna suite through a door. The larger sauna was used by "straights" - heterosexual working-class men, and it was the one I always sat in. But the other was frequented by gay men, attracted to the facility by an advert posted on their magazine by a staff member. Some of these gay men, after talking with several of them, turned out to be better educated and holding down professional careers. Amazing it was when two different cultures dwelt side by side, yet, as I soon found, each kept themselves apart from the other and there was no trouble.

A Sauna cabin. Stock photo.

But above all that, each bather in both groups knew each other well, thus creating a club atmosphere, and I was accepted into their "club", so to speak. This sense of "being part of the family" was certainly felt among the straight working classes, more so than in the gay group. In addition, I would have felt an oddity had I worn shorts or swimwear at the sauna. All the men there were starkers, like a nudist beach camp. However, I quickly got used to it and within days, being nude in company with others was never an issue.

Also, the men's session and the women's session alternated each evening. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday were assigned for the men, while Tuesdays, Thursdays, and I think, Sundays, were assigned for the women. It's these single-sex sessions, patterned after the ancient Roman culture, that had allowed nudity to flourish. Not any more.

Those were the days I look upon with fondness, a hot room smelling of pine and eucalyptus, a fragrant oil poured with the water onto the hot coals, located at the corner by the door. Anyone can ladle the mixture onto the coals, and as often as needed. There always was that sense of adult freedom that seemed to fade over time, with the fading accelerated by the recent pandemic.

How the facility had changed over the years! The whole spa suite is now refurbished with individual changing cubicles, two luxury bubble baths and both of them are rich in aesthetics. The steam room is of much better quality, and one of the sauna cabins is now replaced by a saunarium, a cooler room with higher moisture content in the air. But gone is the cold plunge pool. Instead, a cold shower had taken its place, which, to my mind, doesn't hold a candle to the old plunge pool. Gone too, is the old resting room. Instead, the wall that separated it from the sauna facility was demolished, leaving a smaller space within the facility with fewer reclining beds.

But the big difference is the lack of the "club atmosphere" created by the old regulars. Instead, its patrons tend to be strangers who keep themselves to themselves, although before the onset of Coronavirus, there were a few regulars who kept a remnant of a club atmosphere, even that was wiped out by the pandemic. No longer hosting single-gender sessions, swimwear is now compulsory for all bathers, with even a wall notice reminding us of it.

Then came the pandemic. And with it, the national lockdown. This included the closing down of the entire Leisure Centre. The sauna facility remained out of use for around 18 months. It was also when we all had to queue to get into a superstore such as Sainsbury's. I remember the first time we all had to queue. At first, it looked very long and daunting. But each person or couple stood more than two metres apart, the newly-initiated social distancing which made the queue appear longer than it really was.

But it took up to an hour between joining the queue and actually passing through the doors, with a marshall monitoring each person entering, to ensure that the people inside the store didn't exceed the maximum number. Over time, the queue got shorter, and with the shop encouraging its customers to shop alone rather than as a couple, the waiting time became considerably quicker.

By the Summer of 2020, the pandemic began to wane, and I thought that life will return to a resemblance of normality. But with new variants of the virus, first, the Kent variant followed by the Delta variant, by Autumn of that year, our Government made mask-wearing compulsory. And here is the twist. As soon as mask-wearing became mandatory, cases of new infections began to rise again. But at least there was one issue in its favour - the doing away with shopping queues altogether, thus, the normalisation of daily shopping trips. 

Whether there's any connection between mandatory mask-wearing and the rise of the third wave, in particular, I can't be sure, but there are many who argue in favour of the facecloth. But the scientists who had worked hard to develop the vaccine deserve my praise! As I see it, the vaccines are a mercy from God. And as the rollout took off with vigour at the start of 2021, the effects of the pandemic began to wane, with far fewer hospitalisations and deaths after a positive test.

And the rate of hospitalisations and deaths remained at a roughly flat rate. By the Summer, I was able to swim again every week. But it's no longer the case of just walking in at any minute of the day and swimming as long as I desire, as it was pre-pandemic. Now I have to book in advance, and I'm allowed a maximum of one hour to swim. Although I dislike the restriction, yet I find it's enough for me. The sauna is different. Fortunately, I can make two sixty-minute bookings back-to-back, therefore giving me two hours of bathing time which again, I have found to be adequate enough.

And so, I sit alone in the sauna cabin with no one to start a proper conversation with. What a difference from what it was 45 years previously! At least I'm no longer buffeted with swear words, the teasing and the criticising of others, and toilet jokes. But that "family atmosphere" is forever gone.

And then another phenomenon which never occurred back in the old "club" days - the admission of the severely disabled. Only yesterday, some carers brought in two mentally disabled women. Both were in wheelchairs. But one of them, plump but quite facially pretty with long dark hair, kept roaring like a lion. The loud noise was quite daunting, yet I looked upon her with my heart longing to give her an embrace, a tight hug. If I had the love of Christ for her, that was it. I would have done anything to enhance her welfare. 

And just as I was, in all, beginning to settle into this new way of living and enjoying the facilities, news comes in of a new, more dangerous variant of the virus. Named Omicron, after a Greek letter for "o", the Government is at present trying to reassure us that there is no need to panic. At least not yet, as further research is needed to establish the power of Omicron, whether if it spreads quicker and if so, would it intensify illness of its human host? Is it resistant to the vaccines? Would hospitalisation rise again to the levels back in January? And would deaths follow suit? And so our Government, having learned their lessons from previous variants, quickly banned flights from the affected countries. Good on them!

Vaccines for Coronavirus was a wonder in themselves.

Another lockdown? No, please, no! If our beloved Leisure Centre with our sauna facilities (paid for by us members) was to close down again, who knows, it could be permanent. New homes built on the site after demolition? No thank you! After all, who wants such wonderful memories swept away forever by a virus? 

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear...

Isaiah 59:1 AV.

The real cure for this global pandemic is to fall on God's mercy and call upon his name. No one can go wrong there.

Agape Love at the Sauna.

A typical Friday afternoon. Off to the gym, I went, as I normally do as one retired from full-time work. After a 65-minute aerobic workout on one of the four TechnoGym rowing machines, burning off 300 kcals, followed by 16 minutes on the treadmill with a further 60 kcal burned off, I made my way to the spa suite, where I am to relax in the bubble-bath, steam room and sauna. Indeed, very much like my Roman ancestors across two millennia of history. The only difference is that both sanitation levels and advanced technology have come a long way from the ancient public baths, perhaps to the cost of aesthetics, in which the Romans were renowned. 

Nothing new about any of this. The novelty wore off decades ago when I started attending sauna in 1976, as a slim 23-year-old. Although the original suite featured the frigidarium - a cold plunge pool, which, during the major refurbishment in the nineties, has been replaced by a so-called ice cold shower which has been known to be far from icy during the Summer!

A typical sauna cabin.

But despite my years at the facility - and others overseas such as in Haifa, San Diego, and Sydney - something that I consider new is has been occurring lately. And that is the presence of a female patient with a mental age of that of a baby, along with her supervisor or carer.

Indeed, I have already touched on this subject recently.* Then I wrote about my experience with a group of mentally-disabled patients and their carers at the same Leisure Centre after a swimming workout. I then made a comparison between the lifestyle of one of the patients with that of a wedding of a TV celebrity whose parents I know personally at our church.

This female patient at the sauna looked to be about twenty years of age, give or take, and she was quite pretty, with long flowing hair. She and her carer spend most of their time in the bubble bath, but I have seen them venture into the saunarium, which is cooler than the sauna but with a higher level of humidity. Towards the end of my time at the spa facility, she and her carer were taking a finishing shower. Afterwards, she sat in a chair, facing directly towards me, and apparently staring straight at me.

I turned and smiled at her. There was no other response but to stare steadily at me. Then I waved at her during the brief moment her carer had her back turned. Still no response. Not to worry, as I returned to my inclining position on one of the heat beds. As I lay there, I had a longing to approach her and give her a hug and speak gently to her. The desire to give her a hug was offset by anticipation that she would take it the wrong way, and scream with fright or protestation. As such, I felt the wiser to remain where I was.

But I still felt love for that patient, the love Christ has for us. While we were totally helpless, Christ died for us, thus demonstrating the love of God in the most sacrificial method. Therefore it was significant and still fresh on my mind that their visit to the spa took place only the day after watching a BBC Panorama programme about the abominable cruelty shown to very similar patients at Whorlton Hall private hospital in County Durham.

This was eight years after Panorama had also investigated Winterbourne View independent hospital in Gloucestershire after a whistleblower reported the levels of cruelty which had taken place within. As a result of the Winterbourne View investigation, the care home was closed down. At present, Whorlton Hall has also shut down. Both investigations were carried out by undercover reporters working as carers.

I have found the Whorlton Hall abuse very distressing. One of the patients, a mentally-disabled female who is also autistic, has a deep fear of men, and she only felt comfortable among female carers. Instead of respecting her wish, several male staff members deliberately taunted her while she was trapped in her room. Laughing and guffawing, her screams of terror was entertaining to them. These guys were quite big, strong and imposing, white, English chavs, whose mere presence bringing out the patient's screams of terror feeding their animalistic instincts, taking pleasure of her distress and suffering.

My heart went out to that patient. I wanted to cry, to cry at my frustration of sheer helplessness to do anything. Perhaps I wanted to see a miracle, for me to be there, to see her face transform from terror to joy. How I long to see her safe in the arms of Jesus, as he gives her an everlasting hug.

Undercover filming of abuse at Whorlton Hall. BBC TV.

Yet how frustrating it can be to my faith when considering that churches have a very dim history when it comes to caring. My own father, when he was an adolescent, had to stay at a nunnery during the Second World War. He tells of the level of cruelty which had taken place whilst staying there, especially when receiving a hard smack across his face for taking Communion without first going to Confession.

I can verify my father's testimony. I have a book, Stiff Upper Lip by ex-boarder Alex Renton. In it, he tells of an anonymous English interviewee who suffered hell at a prep school run by the Jesuits during the War. He began to feel rebellious, lending his support for the Germans and for the Communists, after hearing sermons delivered by "cane-happy priests" and being forced to pray, which he didn't but instead hummed a secular tune whilst in a praying position in order to stay out of trouble.

This also reminds me of a well-known novel by Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist, from which movies, musicals and theatre performances are made to this day. It tells of the grim workhouse environment run by a board of "Christian administrators" - well fed and often pompous - who believed that cruelty is the right way to keep their junior inhabitants in line. This included keeping them to a state of near starvation as well as freely wielding the cane at the slightest misdemeanour.

Therefore it doesn't come as too much of a surprise when I was stuck for a proper solution to the problem. I have thought about every carer in such homes being committed Christians. Then I remembered history. No, that didn't work very well, did it? Little wonder when Charles Darwin wrote his book, On the Origins of Species, which had the power to displace the Christian faith from all logic, history, and from the general worldview, his works were warmly welcomed and became to be seen as universal scientific fact to this day.

It seemed that God wanted to show me something after watching such a distressing programme. On the very next day as well. That was when I watched this mentally disabled female enjoying the spa facilities with her carer. And all I felt was love for her, a wish to see her happy and eternally saved by Jesus Christ. That when the idea came up: If care homes or hospitals of this kind must exist, why not enforce a constitution that these establishments can only be run by true Christian believers who must first pass a stringent test?

However, I also realise that there is a massive difference between offering her a smile as a passing stranger, and ongoing day-to-day care.

Caring daily for one who is autistic and who has a mental disability can be mentally, emotionally and even physically challenging. And I must be honest with myself, I know for sure I can't hack it. And I believe in Jesus as my Saviour. In fact, coping with my own wife's illness is a massive challenge in itself. And her illness is purely physical, even with a sound mind, she's still in need to be in a wheelchair whenever out of doors. I find it agonising when I have to watch her writhe in pain, and I have no other option than to call an ambulance. Fortunately, the introduction of powerful medicines on her prescription such as Co-Codamol and Oramorph has enabled home treatment in lieu of calling for an ambulance, but these experiences can still be scary enough and demand a deep faith in God on a day-to-day basis.

"Please sir, I want some more" Movie version of Oliver Twist.

By contrast, I know a widowed female pensioner who has just reached ninety years of age, yet her dementia sends her into verbal violence which is intense enough to send anyone present from the room she's in, or even from the house itself. I know full well that I could never be able to care for such a person, but I do know that her own granddaughter is her live-in carer. Fortunately for both of them, her two sons along with the Council pay for daycare at a nearby home for the working week, relieving the carer from hours of stress. In turn, the widow enjoys the company of others at the care home, where she is allowed to carry out housekeeping tasks which prove to be very therapeutic.

That's why I do believe that for such people, the family is still the best environment for them to live. An environment where love can be felt and experienced. However, the best kind of love which can be offered to such disabled people is agape love. It's the same sacrificial love God has for us. Therefore, for a carer, especially in a care home or hospital, to possess such love, he or she must know Jesus Christ to be her Saviour, read and thoroughly absorb the Bible on a daily basis and experience the daily filling of the Holy Spirit.

Only then will the cruelty found in private hospitals becomes the thing of the past.

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*To read the account at the Leisure Centre cafe, click here.

What's Missing in the Sauna...

Sitting inside a sauna hot-room only yesterday, two other occupants, a man and a woman, were in a discussion about dating websites. I just listened as I lay on my back gazing at the pine panelling which made up the ceiling whilst saying nothing. It was after the female had walked out of the cabin to cool herself off that I pulled to sitting position and announced that such websites I steer well clear of, or for that matter, from any dating media. Fortunately, I met my future wife on a face-to-face encounter without the need for any intermediary organisations. With such an announcement I made to him, the rest of the conversation went something like this:

"As a matter of fact, it was she who noticed me first, and decided there and then that I was the man for her to spend the rest of her life with."

Where did you two meet? He asked.

"In church." I answered.

I don't mind going to church from time to time. But what I cannot stand is anyone trying to push religion down my throat. 

Then I responded, "Going to church for me is not religion. Rather it's more like calling at a friend's home for a chat. Only a bit more reverently."

The chap seemed impressed, which makes me believe that he had not heard it come across this way before. Yet coming to think of it, I now wished that I have use the words to celebrate rather than for a chat. But I can't turn back the clock. However, I continued,

"I am committed to Jesus. After all, for him to be crucified, buried, and then rose again from the dead in order to give me eternal life - well, how could I refuse such an offer?"

With that, he quickly rose and walked out of the sauna cabin, leaving me as the sole occupant. 

I can't stand anyone pushing religion down my throat. As I sat there alone, I was wondering whether I had done just that, when my intention was to testify about God's goodness to me, and not tell him to turn or burn forever! So with his sudden departure, I felt somewhat deflated. And nursing the psychological soreness brought about by the burden of Biblical instructions to Go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature...(Mark 16:15) - there are times that I'm feeling squeezed into a corner by a supposed privilege I find very difficult to keep, if not impossible. Maybe it's that subconscious obligation of carrying out the task properly and efficiently enough to "win souls to Jesus" - or better still, to make disciples of all nations, which makes me think that at the Judgement Seat of Christ, the Lord will approach me with the question: Why did you neglect, or make such a mess of the Great Commission I gave you? Indeed, suppose I told the fellow sauna user to turn or burn with a severity of a warning, would that had gladdened his heart towards changing his mind? Or strike him with a fear of a possible eternity in hell? Or instead, would have created a barrier of hostility? I can't help feeling the end would have been the third option.

Was all this coincidental of being in the same week as a report I read about concerning a whiteboard at Dollis Hill station on the London Underground? On it was scrawled the commemoration of a grand evangelistic campaign where four thousand Zulus were converted to Christ by a few British missionaries who were all glowering with the love of God for these indigenous people, and as the story goes, the entire tribe thundered their praise and thanksgiving to God Most High for their wonderful revelation and receiving of their salvation, along with the mass baptisms which followed.

Er, no.

Rather, the commemoration was of a battle which took place at Natal, South Africa, which is about a British garrison, known as Rorke's Drift, of just 150 British troops defeating 4,000 Zulu warriors on the 22-23 January, 1879, after invasion on that same month and year. Following the battle, eleven men received the Victoria Cross. This battle was the setting for a 1964 film Zulu, starring Michael Caine. The whiteboard notice attracted singer Lily Allen via a Tweet, who immediately condemned it. Soon after the criticism, a member of the Transport for London staff wiped the board clean after apologising to all who were offended by it.

Allen's criticism of past British colonialism may have made herself a hero in the eyes of her fans, but it's anathema to apparently to the majority in our nation, who hold these victories as their height of national pride and glory. And so, according to The Daily Mail's version of the news, the comments forum which follows underneath contains venomous condemnation of the singer along with praise for those troops. As I pour down the column, every single contributor says the same thing - glorifies colonialism whilst demonising Lily Allen. It didn't take long for me to notice something conspicuously missing in both the main article and the comment forum alike: The British invading a foreign land and then killing its inhabitants who wanted to fight for their own rights, their own land, and their own families. And the victory the British won over the far greater number of Zulus must be down to far superior weaponry. After all, how could bows and arrows match up to the guns, and most likely cannons too? Oddly enough, this little detail was omitted from these media reports.

The whiteboard notice at Dollis Hill Station 

To enter a foreign country to spread the Gospel of salvation out of God's love for these heathen is one thing. To invade to kill, set up a colony and to rule over the remaining indigenous in their own land is quite another. Yet it is patriotically praised and hailed as national glory. But when these same indigenous inhabitants came over here in the UK in the 1950's and 60's and were happy to take on jobs no-one else really wanted, there was discontent and racism. 

And I'm sick of it all, yes, sick of it all. With all this talk of Brexit "to regain our national sovereignty from the European Union", I need to ask: Am I witnessing hypocrisy here on a massive scale? I ask this in the light that the Rorke's Drift Garrison was supposed to be ambassadors of a nation holding a Christian constitution, with the King, the Head of State, standing in the intermediary between the country and God. It is all a mystery to me, or am I the one who is so blind? Perhaps I can ask: What is the real difference between the British Empire and that of the Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, or the Babylonian Empire? Does having a Christian Constitution make British colonialism right after all? Especially when other more ancient empires are portrayed as cesspits of evil?

The guy I spoken to in the sauna was by no means hostile, but he did give me a warning that he does not like religion forced down his throat. And so when I thought about testifying instead, he quickly got up and left. It makes me so sad. I am not only a member of a local church, I represent the Body of Christ, a living letter of Christ, one bearing the Light of the World, according to 1 Corinthians 12:27, 2 Corinthians 3:3, and Matthew 5:14 respectively. Where am I failing? Where about in our local church failing? Where about in the universal church failing?

Maybe Paul the Apostle may give a clue to the answer in 1 Corinthians 13, which is the chapter often read at weddings:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and I can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3.

It seems to me that the fellow at the sauna had contacts with churchgoers. He may even share his office space with one or several. I did not ask, I'm only assuming. He did, however, express his association with Christians one way or another. Perhaps, and I can't be dogmatic here, there might well have been times he was witnessed to, but quite likely in the form of "turn or burn" or a very flimsy presentation of Christ whose words were contradicted by their beliefs in Theistic Evolution. But whatever it might have been, there is one issue where I could be more certain, and that is, this chap was not able to discern the true love of God. 

I guess I need to be cautious here. Jesus expressed the perfect love of God, yet he was rejected by Israel, that is "his own received him not" according to John 1:11. According to what I have read in the first five books of the New Testament, it looks as though Jesus and his followers were rejected by mainly religious people. In both Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel, I can read about Jesus standing outside the city of Jerusalem, and with his arms extended forwards as if his wanting to embrace the whole city, he wept in public. Wept in public. At least twice - the other occasion was when he learnt of Lazarus' death (Matthew 23:37-39, Luke 19:41-44, John 11:35).

And you may well disagree, but I think this is a major problem here in Britain. Emotional restraint especially where love should flow more freely for the benefit of the recipient. To show emotion here is a sign of weakness and a lack of masculinity among men. This brings something of an oddity. Jesus publicly showed his emotions to the point of shedding tears. Wasn't he masculine, then? It's no surprise that I have heard that Jesus was a cissy, a wimp. The type who may cuddle children but withdraw his hand from any type of heavy manual labour or from military activity. Sure enough, Jesus may have come across as a cissy, but throughout his late part of his ministry, he headed doggedly towards Jerusalem, even foretelling to his disciples that after arrival he would be tried, crucified, and to rise again on the third day. Despite his foreknowledge, and discouragement from Peter, he kept going. 

And after arriving in Jerusalem, he stood on a hill and wept for the city, most likely with arms out extending. Yet he raised no protest, no defence when he stood before Pilate. Crowds of people below were shouting in anger and bitter envy. He stood there before Pilate with not a single word of protest said. Instead, he went to the Cross without a single struggle against his oppressors. Now that is masculinity!

Which makes Jesus Christ much stronger than I could ever be. Emotional strength, mental strength, and after his Resurrection, physical strength. And my need for him. My need for his love. My need for his assurance. My need to be embraced by him. To be hugged tightly by the Son of God! Oh, to shed this British reserve! This stiff upper lip nonsense. This cowardly attempt held by some churchgoers "to be to all men". Cowardly, because it's way to hide in the mist, to go with the flow, to stand in the shadows, should anything otherwise should attract attention and meet disapproval. And oh yes, this British bulldog nonsense. Nonsense? In a sense of false masculinity, then yes - nonsense. But if this entity actually exist as an evil spirit hovering in the air, deceiving so many Brits and sending them to a lost eternity, as the apostle wrote about in Ephesians 6:12 - then this is no nonsense. This is a serious issue!

According to my experience, the average male British Christian lives in a different world from the world I live in. Having graduated after a spell at university, they settle in the office where there are many other "nice people" working there. Dressed in shirt and tie, they can barely discern what mud looks like, let alone having it all over their hands. There is never any profanity, no need for smut, as that sort of thing tends to come out from those of low self-esteem. And very emotional restrained, and therefore presenting the ideal Christian morality. It becomes virtually impossible to fault them. So according to more than four decades of church experience.

This middle class culture is quite a world away from where I have been and what I have seen and heard. Working in an all-male furniture factory as an apprentice wood finisher between the years 1968-1973, not only did I had to take on the most basic of dogsbody tasks, but I learnt everything about sex in the most smutty form it could ever take, with swear words I had not even heard of before. As for Jesus, one elderly employee and war veteran, after hearing about a 4,000 year-old corpse excavated fully preserved in ice discovered in China, he shouted, Jesus? They haven't even found his balls! I now wished I replied that if Jesus Christ was resurrected and ascended to heaven, without doubt he would have ascended complete with his scrotum and both testicles. Instead I stood rather spellbound in horror.

This smutty talk continued on into the late seventies when I began to go to the sauna. In those days men bathed entirely naked, as their sessions were on different days of the week from the women's sessions. As a result, throw in a group of working-class men into one hot-room and sooner or later familiarity and a club spirit will breed such vulgar and crude jokes. And I took it all in without a single squeal of protest.

And what did Jesus say to the religious and highly moral? I have come not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. For these tax collectors and sinners will enter the kingdom of God before you.

Luke 5:32, Matthew 21:31.

Maybe that is a true word for today's Brits throughout the whole social class strata.

Gone Down the Tube.

A number of years ago, I read a contribution in a Reader's Letters page in a daily national newspaper one morning before leaving my apartment to go to work. The writer was a middle-age housewife who was on her way home on foot from an errand. On her route she passed an otherwise deserted play park, as all the children were at school. Deserted, that is, except for a police officer who was on duty and in his full uniform. Looking around to make sure no one (so he thought) was watching, he climbed the steps to one of those newfangled stainless steel spiral slides which, back then, had just come into fashion among the swings, climbing frames and other more traditional playground apparatus - a smaller version of the fun fair helter-skelter. Then she watched as this officer of the law was having a whale of a time sliding down that thing while she carried on home giggling to herself.

Or on another occasion, also recorded in a newspaper, during one late evening a fully grown man was seen getting into a shopping trolley parked outside a supermarket located on the summit of a steep hill. He then rode down the hill at speed whilst sitting in the trolley. Or a case of an author when he was still a young boy. On Christmas Eve he sneaked into a cupboard to see a model aeroplane kit in its packing case. But astonishingly enough, he totally forgot about the plane on that Christmas morning, and it was many years later that he approached his mother to ask whatever happened to the model aeroplane.

She burst out laughing, then recalled how the boy's father had waited until late at night, after his children had gone to bed, that he sneaked into the cupboard to assemble the model. He took it outside towards the beach to fly it out. It had flown out alright, out to sea and lost it forever! Perhaps this is why there are many fathers who buy their sons an electric train set for Christmas. So they can play with it themselves, especially with the challenge of laying out the tracks and then watch the train whirl around the oval layout. Such an item is far, far more exciting than the two or three pairs of dull, mundane socks, or even the brand new neck-tie his wife bought as a present to add to his ever-growing collection of either items. I guess fathers who has sons, or even uncles of nephews, are the more fortunate ones during the Christmas season. I never had sons or nephews. So I recall the annual nightmare of attempting to buy presents for my nieces. None of these gifts went down that well with the recipients, and I recall at least a couple of Christmas days when I put on an expression of forced joy to cover my disappointment as I glance at the new but ill-fitting clothing given to me as presents.

Then supposing the actions of a man's shadow reveals exactly what is in his heart. Then imagine a middle-aged suited City gentleman sitting in the commuter train, deep into reading his Financial Times newspaper. On the outside, nobody would give him a second glance. But his shadow would reveal him creeping to the inside of the door, and scrawl his name in indelible ink to add to the graffiti already defacing the surface. If only the carriage was otherwise completely empty, with nobody looking. It would be interesting to know how far he would resist such a temptation before succumbing. And he would not be alone. Because I recall my college days around 1970 in Central London. Before boarding the train home, I managed to reach the exposed beach at the River Thames during low tide. On the bank-side wall I scrawled my name in huge letters in the algae which carpeted the wall. It could be seen clearly from across the river. But what I did was not technically illegal, neither did it attract anyone to take appropriate action.

It's the boy in every man. The want of something exciting to distract from the daily humdrum of life with its responsibilities. And so the day came when the Coral Reef Waterworld finally re-opens after nearly two years of closure for a complete refurbishment. Coral Reef Waterworld is a leisure pool, featuring a rather poor representation of Mt. Vesuvius and the ruins of Pompeii, a pirate ship, a lazy river and a couple of jacuzzis, along with an outdoor section for warm Summer days. But before the refurbishment, its main attraction were the three flumes, or waterslides of various speeds, from fast to gentle. Although the leisure pool itself is geared for families, the Sauna World has always been for adults only, at a suite occupying a building of it own but still attached to the main venue. I am fortunate enough to live very close to the attraction. It was where I always went to every Saturday morning for a sauna. The boy in the man. After a week of physical work cleaning windows, for me at least, nothing is more exhilarating than to relax in the steam room, followed by the sauna.   

Coral Reef Leisure Pool before refurbishment.

And so after twenty-two months of closure, once more I was able to return. But with the weekends and school holidays to be avoided as much as possible. For recent reviews tells of massive queues, with waiting up to two hours just to get in, along with further queuing to use the five brand new flumes which will guarantee a far more of a knuckle ride than the original three. Therefore as one retired from work and with plenty of time on my hands, what could be better than to wait until all the children are back at school, then go during off-peak times during the middle of the week? And so back into the refurbished steam room and sauna. And then, at tea time, I had to try out those five waterslides. 

I recall the time I was at Spring Harvest Bible festival at Minehead in Somerset. There was an indoor swimming pool with flumes there as well. And during a recreational period between seminars, whilst swimming, I overheard one lifeguard shout to another that no way would he use the waterslides, especially on his own, because it would make him feel a prat. He had a point. The flumes were meant for families. So a father and son or daughter was fine. Even two or three young men laughing and having a whale of a time seems okay. And it was fine for a child on his own too. But an adult on his own? Rather silly, isn't it?

Coral Reef flume exterior.

These were the thoughts I had to overcome this week when I allowed my curiosity over these new flumes overcome any feelings of self reserve. This little boy in the man had to come out, or else he would be rather miserable otherwise. So after I had finished with the sauna, I went down all five tubes. Three of them were truly knuckle rides, and I even let out a yell of surprise in two of them. I enjoyed them so much, I had a second go in all of them, making ten rides overall. And I could not have picked a better time than when I did. During weekday evenings families normally don't come here so soon after school. Instead they settle down for dinner, TV and homework. Therefore each ride followed another without any waiting in between. I went home thoroughly fulfilled. I guess the only difference between the police officer in the children's playground and myself was that I did not fear being spotted by my boss whilst on duty!

I believe that any psychologist would advice all men to let the boy within them out, whatever form that would take. Knuckle flume rides are great, but once the novelty has worn off, I'll be attending the sauna suite only, like I did before the refurbishment. But generally speaking, the boy in the man takes many forms, particular among "adult" activities, whether it's riding a Harley Davidson along a straight desert road (in the USA), revving up the car engine at red lights, or something more sedate such as out fishing or playing golf with the boys. As one housewife once said to her daughter-in-law after her husband arrives home with a brand new motorbike, and that was, The only difference between a man and a boy is that the man's toys are more expensive. Or in my case - travel - including hiking into the Grand Canyon, standing on the lip of an active volcanic crater or snorkelling among tropical coral reefs. Or doing a burn-up on a hired bicycle in California, or meditating at a children's playground in Australia whilst riding back and forth on a swing. All these were ways I let the little boy within me have his way.

I am very fortunate to have a very understanding wife. She too have seen videos of these flumes at Coral Reef Waterworld, and she expressed her longing to have a try at them herself, but unable to because of her disability. Not only is the tower have only stairs and no lift, but the rides themselves could easily do her back in, resulting in an ambulance trip to hospital. But when I told her that evening how much I enjoyed sliding down those tubes after the sauna, she was elated. Knowing what's best for me, she has always been aware that to let out the boy in me is one of the best therapeutics I can have, other than spiritual matters.

Off-duty Coral Reef lifeguards having fun

And that is coming from one who is a tomboy herself. When she was young she went camping with the church youth group. She loved it. But she has admitted that she would have preferred to be among the boys, sitting around the campfire whilst watching meat rotate slowly over the fire on a spit as it gradually roast to perfection. Because of her love for the Great Outdoors, I bought a used tent from one of my window cleaning customers, and with it, we went camping for quite a number of occasions. But camping has always been more for her. I've always preferred hosteling.

And this is where I believe that among married couples, it is essential for the wife to allow her husband to let his boyhood out. For her to stifle his boyhood desires and restricting his activities would put a strain on the marriage, leaving him in a state of frustration. There is nothing wrong with saunas, nothing wrong in having fun, there is nothing wrong with a married man going out for an evening with the boys. At least not according to my experience. Because, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

1 Corinthians 10:31.

Doing it all for the glory of God. I think this makes a world of a difference when it comes to recreation. The sauna is a good example of this attitude. I go to the sauna for a therapeutic cleansing of the skin and to improve muscle tone and blood circulation. These are beneficial to the body. It's okay, there is nothing bad about any of that. But to some, there may be a bad connotation with the idea of the sauna. For example, the LGBT community may perceive the sauna as a gay pick-up, a cruising site and same-sex exploitation. And such seedy sites do exist, especially in bigger cities. But not at Coral Reef Waterworld, which is geared to the family. Interestingly enough, the Apostles lived and carried their message across the Roman world. And throughout the empire public baths were very frequently found. For example, just before its destruction in AD 79, the city of Pompeii had up to three separate public baths, each one the equivalent of today's sauna suite. They normally consisted of the Calidarium, or hot steam room, the Laconicum, or dry heat as with the present sauna, and the Frigidarium, a cold pool or room. This together with changing rooms and other conveniences, were often located together with the Palaestra, or exercise yard, often complete with the Natatio, or swimming pool. Indeed, the ancient Roman leisure centre was hardly different from our own facilities, but not a word from the apostle forbidding believers to use them.

Instead the Apostles warns every believer to flee from immorality, which includes all kinds of sexual perversion. Also in Pompeii, there were bars selling alcohol with brothels on the upper floors. Maybe this was what the apostles discouraged. Along with drunkenness and prostitution, I can imagine all kinds of carousing and "fleshly desires" fulfilled. Instead, the baths were places where not only for cleansing, but also a venue for where various discussions took place, along with business contracts made, together with general socialisation. There is even a tradition which I once read. According to this legend, the Apostle John was bathing at one of these Roman bath suites when someone he knew walks in. This fellow has a reputation for blaspheming Jesus Christ and insisting that he was just an impostor. Immediately John dresses and walks out. As Paul had written, What fellowship has righteousness with unrighteousness, or light with darkness, or Christ with Belial, or believers with unbelievers?

2 Corinthians 6:14-17.

In this case John walks out because this intruder was not an interested inquirer, nor a honest doubter whose faith could have been reversed by John's presentation of the Gospel. But instead, this fellow had heard the Gospel, and probably for a while even tasted the heavenly gift, even shared in the Holy Spirit and had tasted the good word of God, and of the things to come (Hebrews 6:4-6) but had never changed his mind to the Gospel and believed, and by the process of hardening of his heart, his original unbelief has metamorphosed into hatred of Christ, his Apostles, and the Gospel.

Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.

And we must not let this piece of advice go down the tube of unbelief.