How I Long For Yesterday...

I know, all the Media is jam-packed with news about Coronavirus, and just like with me, perhaps you too have all this already coming out of your ears. Especially with these Government announcements, appearing on Facebook and other social media, along with on television, constantly repeating what we had drummed into us for the past week - stay at home, don't go out at all except for essentials - food, medicine and exercise. And oh yes, keep a distance of at least two metres from the next person and always wash your hands.

And so a dog walker drives alone to a remote spot at the Lake District National Park or the Pennines National Park, both very large natural and undeveloped areas, and he is stopped by the Police while he was walking his dog on a leash. A bit odd that is, and as a result, these national parks are declared closed to the public. Indeed, only last Sunday, crowds were seen at such beauty spots as well as on our beaches, thanks to a very unusual early Spring sunshine accompanied by a calm, balmy warmth. Such sights of crowds socialising, whether it's within the National Park boundaries, city spaces such as London Kensington Gardens, or local open spaces such as South Hill Park, just a stone's throw from our house, the sights of such crowds has sent our Government ministers into a spin. 

Lake District National Park. Last visited 2016.

Such beautiful scenery with ideal weather provides a level of distraction from these perilous times when one patient after another is rapidly dropping down like flies as the virus spreads. But as being human is all about taking our minds off the crisis should it otherwise drive us all insane. I, for one, will need some form of distraction just to stay sane. Indeed, both my wife Alex and I can be considered more fortunate in a way that we know God through faith in his Son Jesus Christ, and therefore time can be spent in prayer, as demonstrated in last week's blog.

And here I stood, at the back of a long queue slowly moving as it snaked some 150 metres to the entrance doors of our local Sainsbury's superstore. I found all this quite shocking, indeed, when considering my usual habit of "just popping in for a moment" was always taken for granted since I started going there for the last 25 years or so. But at least the queue wasn't as it seemed. Each person standing in line stood at least two metres apart, maybe more, thus fewer people than it first looked. One of the stewardesses patrolling the line and bidding us all good morning approached to where I was standing, and apparently, I was the only one in my area of the queue to respond with an audible greeting. It goes to show how just a little response is enough to lift her spirits and make her arduous day's work a little easier.   

But overall, I was overwhelmed with apprehension. It is as if all of my life flashed before me. The times I "popped in" to buy something, and this goes way back into boyhood when mum despatched me to the corner shop to buy something she either forgot to buy herself or to have run out of sooner than expected. Oh, those were the days when innocence prevailed, a happy boy skipping along without a worry in the world, memorising what he needs to get.

I woke up at about three in the morning earlier this week. I found myself struggling to breathe, although I was not coughing, neither did I have a high temperature, two of the most prominent signs of infection. It seems as though shadows filled the bedroom as my wife slept soundly beside me. I arose and opened the window into the cool night and took deep breaths. That didn't help much. This was because I was filled with fear of death. Death by asphyxiation while asleep. I got back into bed and snuggled up close up to my beloved. This was the reason for the fear. To be separated from my wife, who would not cope well with widowhood due to her own physical lack of wellbeing. Furthermore, would I enter Heaven if I was to die now? Or would I tumble into Hell, in torment, never to experience the love of my wife ever again? Such thoughts kept feeding my fears.

As I lay there, I concentrated on the Cross of Christ and quoted Scripture, mainly John 3:16 and Romans 10:9-10, 13. Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That is how the Authorised Version has it. But according to the AV Interlinear Greek/English New Testament, the stronger words -will be saved- is used, as in all other versions. Thus, I whispered aloud, Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved, several times. Suddenly I felt much better and immediately dropped off back to sleep.

But this experience has caused me to reflect back on my life. How much for granted have I taken all of God's blessings since I was born? True enough, I failed at school, which had a domino-effect throughout the whole of my working life. There were many times when I looked at the young man in a suit and tie passing through the machine shop of an engineering factory where I worked, on his way to the office upstairs. How I wanted to be like him! Well educated. Well respected. So did my late parents who wanted me to be like him too, instead, at the time they were frustrated with my lack of school progress.

But what a difference it is to know the Gospel of Jesus Christ! As everything started to improve after conversion at the age of twenty years, it becomes easy for me to start taking my blessings for granted. Like the time I saw the Old City of Jerusalem for the first time in my life. That was in 1976. Such a view from the Mount of Olives has not only brought the Bible to life but also the memories of those crushingly dull R.E. lessons I had to take back at school. It wasn't until my second visit there in 1993 when I was mature enough to allow God to speak to me concerning the city, and how I was wonderfully blessed.

Jerusalem from Mt of Olives, stock photo. Last visited October 2000.

Transatlantic flights for leisure? During the 1960s, this wasn't even dreamed of, except perhaps by a handful of well-to-do aristocrats and a few prominent businessmen and celebrities. Even back then, the thought of foreign holidays - that is, to the Spanish Costas, was only emerging as the latest progress for middle-class vacationers, the asking price of about two to three hundred guineas for a full-package holiday was astounding but in 1970 such a trip was still financially out of my reach.

Therefore to board an aeroplane at London Gatwick on both the 1977 and 1978 trips across the Big Pond to Toronto and New York respectively was something I should have taken as a great gift from God, a blessing undeserved. Yes, I did think that way, but the temptation was also there to declare these trips as my own rights. The same applied to the 1990s. It took as my own right to fly to Singapore, Australia and California in 1997 as well-deserved when I also knew full well that such Round-the-World trips would have astounded just about everybody just two or three years earlier. Such as when I was at the Travel Exhibition held at Earls Court just a few weeks before take-off. There I astonished a TV cameraman and his crew when I told them what I was up to. 

Travel aside, there are many other things I take for granted rather than giving glory to God. Besides our strong and robust marriage, this also includes going to the gym, also swimming and the sauna at will, with no hindrance. In the past, I was able to run distance races to raise money for charity, as well as compete in Triathlons and cycling tourism. Then, of course, to go shopping whenever I need to. Groceries of every form so readily available at a nearby superstore. No need for hunting trips or to travel miles to find water. 

If all this is pure boasting, then let me boast in the goodness of God who has blessed me so well throughout my whole life.

And this is what this present Coronavirus crisis has done, in a way it has brought me to my senses. The sudden change in lifestyle - staying at home in isolation, the need to queue to visit a superstore, to see all the other businesses and traders shut down, no more visits to the Leisure Centre to exercise, the end of newspaper reading at Starbucks and Costa Coffee, something I have enjoyed doing particularly since 2015, all these is a sudden cultural shock, the forfeiture of my freedom. 

Then the weekly church service. Like all the other churches, Ascot Life Church now has only virtual-meetings. That is, partaking in worship and listening to the sermon via a computer screen while I'm alone in the room, which could be anywhere in the world. I can't help thinking that this resembles a Communist country where all church meetings are illegal, and anyone meeting would suffer persecution including trial and a prison sentence, maybe even execution. I need to be thankful that our churches here in the West have not reached such a scenario and I hope they never will.

But I feel, in a sense, homesickness in my spirit. Ascot Life Church is my spiritual home, and since it isn't there, I do feel isolated, a wanderer looking for a home. This is another angle of my life this pandemic has exposed, that I love my home church fellowship far more than I thought I did. And I miss it intensely. Strange, isn't it? It can be quite easy to criticize the fellowship, how it's run, its structure of leadership and service, midweek meets and whatever, but it takes something big like this virus pandemic to expose my real feelings, my heart and soul commitment and sense of belonging.

Old Paddock Suite, meeting venue for Ascot Life Church.

A loving fellowship is not confined within the racecourse restaurant where we meet each Sunday. In the past months, even in the last few years, I had several one-to-one chats over coffee with elders and friends alike. Furthermore, a strong sense of brotherhood thrives between a doctor of philosophy, who excelled so well at school and university alike, and me who - er - didn't do quite so well at school! Thank you, Andrew Milnthorpe, for being such a great companion at the Leisure Centre, on day trips and on long weekends over the last few years. Now the crisis has forced us apart, I must admit, I miss your company.

It is my prayer that this crisis will pass, and to see all shops and businesses reopen, to be able to walk into any superstore without the need to queue up, to resume my exercise schedule, to enjoy a cappuccino coffee at Starbucks, to board a train whenever I need to and to attend church every Sunday. But most important of all, how I long to see for myself the turning of thousands to God through faith in Jesus Christ, a national and global realisation that God exists and the turning the heart to Him for forgiveness, salvation and in in-filling of the Holy Spirit. How I long to see existing churches swell in numbers and grow spiritually, and for new churches to spring up.

If anything good can come out of this dreadful time then let it be for greater awareness of God and the turning of many to him.

Apprentice Octopus!

It was our honeymoon in the Autumn of 1999. As my bride Alex was sunbathing on the little stretch of beach at St. Paul's Bay at the coastal resort of Lindos, on the Greek island of Rhodes, I swam with casual ease among rocks protruding from the surface of the warm Mediterranean waters. Just below the surface lurked a live octopus. Whether it was looking out for its next meal or whether it was irritated by my constant presence as I gazed in wonder, I cannot be sure. However, if the creature is as intelligent as marine biologists make out to be, then it's more likely that its irritability was caused by my intrusion into its territory rather than the other way round.

St Paul's Bay, Rhodes.

Watching documentaries about life beneath the waves on television can be quite edifying and a good source of knowledge. But observing by looking at a TV screen would never hold a candle to actually being in the water itself to observe such living creatures, although to be thoroughly honest, when it comes to the Great White Shark, I rather be looking at it on television than finding myself staring face-to-face with one in the open ocean! Then again, today's newspaper is carrying an article about a young British tourist in his twenties, who was fatally bitten by a sea snake off the northern coast of Australia. This particular species of sea snake has one of the highest venom potentials of all snakes, whether marine or land.

There is always an element of risk when sea bathing, whether it's a swim off the pebbly beach at Brighton or diving or snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef. With Brighton, there is always the risk of rip-tides, where a strong current can take a swimmer out to sea, even a strong swimmer. But at the Great Barrier Reef, one would never know what organism may suddenly strike after its territory so rudely intruded. What I have seen, the sharp teeth of a Moray Eel does look as if it can sever a human arm if it snaps shut at a passing diver. Yet, after being warned by close friends of the dangers of encountering wildlife in warm climes or tropical regions, I returned home safely from both hiking through the desert of the Grand Canyon and from snorkelling at the Great Barrier Reef and at the Red Sea alike.

And from any threats from the octopus. No doubt, far more interested in finding a stray crab than in the presence of an intruding human, biologists have credited the Octopus with a very high level of intelligence, according to TV documentaries. High intelligence? Maybe if I were to keep an octopus in a tank nearby, perhaps it will sort through these high-tech problems occurring on my laptop! However, I do find these marine creatures fascinating. But high intelligence? What I have seen throughout life, I can't see any higher intelligence in the octopus than within the rest of the animal kingdom. After all, is the spider with its intricate web-building instinct less intelligent than the octopus?

When scientists say that a particular species of octopus have higher intelligence, they tend to refer to its evolutionary progress to inherit the ability to change its skin colour instantly to blend into its surroundings in perfect camouflage. This ability, astonishing as it is in my opinion, looks to be from involuntary instinct rather than by conscious calculation. In other words, the octopus does not consciously change its skin colour to suit the oft-changing sea floor. As the creature moves along, its colour changes without any effort by the organism, as if the original work of an intelligent Designer.

According to my own observations, the octopus, like most other living creatures, has to survive in a fallen world where predation holds dominance. Therefore it's no surprise that the Designer had equipped the octopus with a threefold ability for survival - to prey on other lifeforms for sustenance, to keep itself from being prey to another carnivorous creature, and the ability to reproduce. And so, if camouflage is one method needed for its survival, shouldn't this be a testimony for a Designer rather than by evolution by chance and mere natural selection?

And so the octopus became the centre of attention during the opening episode of the BBC television show, The Apprentice, a twelve-part series about entrepreneur Alan Sugar in his search for a business partner to whom he will invest 250,000 pounds towards the business owned by the winning candidate. Sixteen candidates were chosen from thousands of applicants, as a result of tough tests and interviews, including an assessment of each by a Psychiatrist, before the finalists were selected. Therefore all of them, eight men and eight women, are the cream of business acumen, the very backbone of England. 

Their first task involved a flight to Malta to purchase nine items which reflected the island's culture. One of the items included on the list was "an octopus with a 40-inch hose."

So the whole of the two teams flew out to Malta for the one day. Whilst escorted to the airport, one of the females asked, Where is Malta? Oh dear. Here is a rising professional, upon her the future of our country's economy will be dependent on, not knowing where Malta is? If I had been there with her, I probably would have answered, it's on this planet, dear!

Once landed on the South Mediterranean island, the men did take off their jackets but kept their shirts firmly buttoned and their ties fully done up. But to be fair to them, the filming was most likely done in the Spring, when the average Maltese temperature was about 17 degrees Celsius - not exactly sunburn weather. So appeared a team of what used to be called Yuppies (an acronym for Young Urban Professional). The Yuppie was the creme-de-la-creme of English City society back in the eighties when Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher - the first ever UK's female Prime Minister - was in power, and the sharply dressed Yuppie, with his astonishing wealth made so quickly over weeks rather than years or even months, was sometimes referred to as Thatcher's Children. And so, thirty years on, here they are, trying to get to grips with their new environment.

Lord Sugar included an octopus with a forty-inch hose on their shopping list. All the candidates were stunned by the request. This item was passed over by the women, one of several omissions which cost them the task. But the eight men were determined to include the octopus with their other purchases. Had I been there with them, I would have immediately realised that these eight-legged marine creatures don't have forty-inch hoses. Therefore I would have concluded there and then that the item was to be some man-made device bearing the same name, the conclusion I had right from the start whilst watching the programme.

Lord Sugar was referring to this.

The team had no knowledge of diving between all eight of them. Not one of them had any idea that a piece of diving equipment was referred to. And to be honest and fair, I have no knowledge on specific diving equipment either, even though I went on an actual dive at Rhodes during our honeymoon. There I was fitted with the appropriate equipment, including the octopus, by a supervisor without being told the detail of each piece of equipment.

Therefore, not knowing what an octopus is, and not permitted to Google the term either, I would have thought that having a marine name and a hose to go with it, all I had to do was walk into a shop which either sells fishing tackle or a dealer in diving equipment. It would have been risky, but making a fool of myself due to lack of knowledge - well, there was no other option. Real octopuses don't have 40" hoses! Therefore what would have been the outcome? 

I believe that the dealer in fishing tackle would have explained to me what an octopus is, and then directed me to the dive equipment shop. Or if it was the diving store I first walked into, the assistant would have placed several brands of the breathing device on the counter in front of me. A purchase is then made.

But what did these 'yuppie' friends do instead? Yes, they chose a fishmonger and in there, they spoke with an almost unbearable level of arrogance and ended up with buying a real dead octopus! They even had the "hose" measured, which was less than one inch in length when stretched. No matter. The item must be bagged.

The actual scene from The Apprentice, in Malta.

And the point in all this? Incredibly amusing. And perhaps shocking too. These men are our future business leaders, and post-Brexit Britain will depend on their skills to stabilise the economy. But as a retired window cleaner and most likely considered as not very clever or academic, I do feel that I could have done better, at least with this octopus gadget anyway. Like the time when I was guest at the home of a middle-class family of four, where both sons were due to attend university. After lunch, we were all engaged in a General Knowledge quiz board game. Much to my surprise, I managed to beat them. Then there was another middle-class professional couple with whom I played Scrabble. I have defeated them too, along with others where knowledge is part of the game, although to balance the books, I will admit being defeated several times by an adolescent young enough to be my son in a game of Trivial Pursuit.

Post-Brexit Britain, the creme-de-la-creme of English society, the backbone of Britain, such makes up many a Christian church here in the UK. But as a Christian, I do have very close friends who voted to leave the EU, but I don't allow this to get between us (as you might have already guessed: I voted to remain in the EU). Therefore it can be said that I have friends and Christian brothers among those who voted to leave the European Union as well as those who voted to remain. Yet through the power of Christ within us, we remain close.

It is a case when Christian fellowship should cover over differences of political opinion, and dare to say, I have friends in churches who also believe in Theistic Evolution instead of Divine Creation as described in the Bible. And that, I believe, is what God's desire for all mankind is all about. The friendship between us that is, without compromising on my convictions. First be reconciled to God, having all his sins forgiven, acquitted, regenerated, and being led by the Holy Spirit dwelling within. And all this can only come through faith in Jesus Christ, his death on the Cross, his burial, and his Resurrection.

I suppose The Apprentice is just the opposite, in a sense a representation of Darwinianism. The survival of the fittest, the elimination of the weakest candidate. And each week there will always be the weakest candidate and he or she has to go. I guess, rather than evolution, it represents natural selection. True enough, but neither man or woman actually evolves. There will never be some kind of superhuman working with Lord Sugar. Instead, the entire series is nothing more than the struggle between candidates for survival - in this case, to remain in the process. Even within team co-ordination, disagreements arise which can lead to verbal fights, although I have yet to see an actual physical fight. That would make the whole programme very colourful, would it not?

I think programmes such as The Apprentice is fun to watch. Could there be something within us, a longing desire to see some very proud and arrogant would-be professional facing humiliation in view of the whole nation? The crass stupidity shown especially by the men when they entered en bloc into a fishmonger's and then deliver a lecture about an octopus with a 40" hose, has surely tickled our fancy. Surely, the very puzzlement shown by the fishmonger should have been a clear enough signal that something is not right here. But such blindness and crass stupidity combined with unadulterated pride, self-confidence, and arrogance reveal a hole in each of their hearts which only the Resurrected Christ can fill.