So much can change in a minute!

 

Photograph - Jon Tyson - Unsplash 

Photograph - Malvestida Magazine - Unsplash

Photograph - Maks Styazhkin - Unsplash 

A lot can change in a minute. We all know the cliches about a week being a long time (in politics) and a lot can happen in a day but the truth is that life can change completely in less than a minute. 

For instance, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time something could happen that you never envisaged and it changes everything. I’ll never forget when eleven-year-old Rhys Jones from Liverpool was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He lived in a respectable home in a decent area of the city. His mum worked in our local Tesco Store and he was just an ordinary boy enjoying life, loving his football and playing out, as boys do. But on that sad day, he died in the crossfire between two rival gangs. But on the 22nd of August 2007, everything changed in a moment. His life was ended, his parents and family were devastated and his blood was on the hands of the young man who pulled the trigger and those who were involved in providing the weapon. 

20th July 1969 - Remember!!

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I was reminded while reading yesterday of the events of July 20th, 1969. Those that owned a television or at least knew someone who did gathered around it to watch something that was a ‘giant leap for mankind’, Man stepped off this planet and on to the nearest piece of rock to the earth in this enormous universe. It was a huge scientific achievement; humans travelled the 384,400 km to step foot on the moon and leave a footprint in the dust. That footprint is still there, it has not been removed as on the moon there is no wind or rain to disturb it.

Remembering Sir Nicholas Winton

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Towards the end of 1938, a stock-broker, born to German-Jewish parents, travelled from England, which had become his home, to Prague, Czechoslovakia, knowing that upon arrival, he would find many people displaced from their homes. Some were living with relatives, others living rough or in camps with little food and trying their best to keep warm in the winter conditions. At the age of 29, he had so far lived a relatively comfortable life, but hearing about Jews who had lost their jobs and suffered other forms of persecution, he set out to see if there was anything he could do to help.

Whilst a number of organisations were working away, things were getting tougher. He was concerned with rescuing children, but amongst other challenges, was the problem of transporting unaccompanied children across Europe into Britain. Nicholas used his political connections to put certain things in order and his mother went to the ‘Home Office’ to make his rescue plan possible.

Superheroes

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When I was a boy, like many of my peers, I was enthralled by the exploits of superheroes like Superman, Batman and Spiderman. As time went by I grew out of these fictional characters and mostly forgot about them. Now, as I listen to my grandson enthusiastically talking about my old heroes and a whole range of others, I realise that superheroes are with us to stay.

Some of these characters have been with us for along time. Since 1939, Stan Lee has been responsible for creating or co-creating some of the world’s most popular superheroes. His imagination gave birth to Black Panther, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Thor, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, the Incredible Hulk, Daredevil and Ant-Man.

Do you like to be proved wrong?

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Most of us like to be right, and not many of us like to be told that we are wrong, even if we are!

Only one person has ever lived who was perfect, and unable to do anything wrong — Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us plainly that ‘all have sinned’, yet we also read about some that became known as ‘righteous’. How can this be?

Today, we are thinking about Abel, the second man to be born. We inherit some things from our parents and there is one thing in particular that Abel and his older brother Cain inherited from their father that we have to mention. They did things wrong, and did not need to be taught how to do them — it just happened. This is because they got it from their father, Adam, who himself did something that God told him not to do. Eating the fruit that his wife, Eve, gave him might not have seemed very serious, but it broke his, and by inheritance, our relationship with God.

Caring for Caterpillars

This story seems incredible but is true. Two friends of mine were one day walking through a park in the West Midlands, when they came, as one does, to a park bench.  One of them looked down and saw a caterpillar and for some reason his attention became locked upon that small creature making its way along the bench.  They both stopped, as they obviously did not have much to do that day, and watched the caterpillar.

The creature walked along the bench or crawled (whatever caterpillars do) and would stop, turn around and go back again and they became fascinated with what they saw.  They started to make noises and their excited words started to attract attention from people passing by. Eventually a lady hearing them being so clearly excited came over and said, ‘What are you looking at?”  They said, “The caterpillar!”  Her response was, “Is that all.” and she picked up the caterpillar and hurled it into the lake.

A refugee’s gratitude

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Recently many news outlets published a story about a man, Eric Schwam, who died at the end of last year, at 90 years of age, and whose entire estate was bequeathed, not to his family or friends, or to an organisation, but to an entire village: Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, in southern France. The reason: he was an Austrian Jew, who had arrived there with his parents as a 12-year-old in 1943, fleeing from the Nazis. 

The people of the village hid them in the village school, where they remained, undiscovered, until the end of the Second World War. Mr Schwam intimated that the bequest (reckoned to be about two million euro) was "in gratitude for the welcome he received 78 years ago".

Control of our laws and our destiny

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On 24 December 2020, a week before the deadline, agreement was reached between the European Union and the United Kingdom, which avoided a ‘no-deal Brexit’, the UK Prime Minster declared, ‘We have taken back control of our laws and our destiny.’ On reading this, two questions came to my mind: ‘To what extent is that true?’ and ‘What will the destiny be?’ Then I turned to applying these issues to ourselves as individuals. Can we each decide our ‘laws’? Is our ‘destiny’ in our own hands? What is that ‘destiny’?

It does seem that ‘Brexit’ will give the UK greater control over its law-making, and some gladly say that external bodies cannot now ‘tell it what to do’. In personal life, many also like to make their own decisions, and do not want instruction from others on how to conduct their lives. However, no nation can totally do as it pleases as far as its laws are concerned, for there are serious consequences if, for example, it breaks international law. 

Caught by his own camera

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In recent years, many car drivers have installed dashboard cameras, so that, if they are involved in an accident, the footage can be used to help establish liability. 

The trend has also been taken up by some cyclists, who have cameras fitted, not only for use in case of accidents, but also for recording careless driving by motorists. The photographic evidence is then forwarded to the authorities, and those who pose a danger to cyclists can be prosecuted, even if no collision has occurred. 

A couple of years ago, a cyclist in Ireland successfully implicated two drivers by this method. However, to his dismay, the investigators, on examining his video, found that he too had been guilty of breaking the law during his journey, and he was prosecuted, along with the drivers he had filmed.

Communication

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Looking back, I can see it’s several weeks, two months in fact, since I wrote any news bulletins or blogs from here, so on this mid-summer’s day while the sun is behind some clouds, I thought it was a good opportunity to write again. But what can I write about this time? 

You’ll see that I’ve dropped the “Coronavirus” name from the title of my bulletin now – more in hope than in realism because it’s only too obvious that the pandemic is not over yet. It’s good to see how vaccines are making a difference, and most of us have now had our two doses, but infections are still a real danger to society as this horrible virus itself fights for its survival. In the UK we might yet see a third wave coming our way as we watch crowds mixing in several places without any attention to “social distancing”.  

Do you have an anchor in your life?

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Do you have an anchor in your life? 

Today, we are familiar with logos, icons, and symbols. They are a simple way of conveying a message. For example, most of us know what the symbol for Wi-Fi is, and when we see a red cross, we know that there is help available for an emergency. One of the early symbols of Christianity was an anchor. For Christians, Christ is the unfailing hope of all who believe in him. Pictured on the epitaphs of first-, second-, and third-century believers, it symbolized the hope they had for this life and the next, and so the symbol of the anchor was adopted as the symbol of hope. The anchor was also regarded in ancient times as a symbol of safety. In the Bible, the gospel message teaches us how we can be ‘safe’ or ‘saved’.