Jaw Dropping Good!

So we decided to take our son’s Christmas presents over for him. We could have posted them but it seemed better to take them in person.

Of course there had to be an element of surprise, so we never mentioned that we were coming. We just dropped in at his work.

His face! You couldn’t have bought it! We stayed a week to make the trip worth it. (Did I mention that he lives in Toronto?)

As we left for the airport he said, “Every night, we just say, “Mum and Dad came all this way!””

Just like Christmas really. God could have posted his love, but turned up in the flesh. Once that registers, it doesn’t half make your jaw drop!

Happy New Year.

Highest regards

Pete

PO Box 29376354

Overheard on my travels:

“Kids like me don’t do education.” … “People from there, well they’re all

the same aren’t they?” … “If you knew what my family was like

you’d…” … “Never tried it, don’t want to try it, won’t ever try it!” …

“Don’t give me that Jesus stuff… seen the church…seen the people…”


It seems that from day one we are either building a box to live our lives

in, or having it built for us. As we get older the box gets tighter. The

walls get thicker. Any sense of the freedom Jesus died for becomes

a distant dream, some say a myth.


His challenge to us is to live outside the box. The challenge starts today

Box or freedom – it really is your choice.

Highest regards

Pete

are you old enough to remember winkle-pickers?

Dear Dad,

I’ve been sussed. Seen through. Uncovered if you catch my drift.

Sorry to start so abruptly but I think that I may be getting into this letter writing business now. I find that I’m doing what I do so easily (and maybe a little rudely too I fear) when I meet up with friends. I don’t know if you have ever had the same kind of problem. Probably not. There you are trying to chat something over with one of the family when in rushes another one of the kids, full of vim and vigour, excited about whatever it is and can’t hold back a moment longer.

I do know that it’s been like that at our house from time to time. We had a really nice lad came to visit. No, I mean really nice. Well mannered, made his bed after him - everything you hope for in your own children when they stay at someone else’s place. Actually he did have one small shortcoming. It was his appetite. Bless him, he could empty a chest freezer single-handed and still have room for afters. I remember sitting around the table after one particularly satisfying feed – Jay was just mopping up after the rest of us.

“Are those Yorkshire puddings still free?” he enquired with a nod to the six or seven still lying on the plate. “I could sure help out with those at a pinch.” (Did I mention that he was one of our American cousins?)

Typically, he had to wait for a bit of a lull in the conversation before he got his chance at the leftovers. Ruth and I are not sure what they put in the water round our way, but everybody shouts across the table all the time. We were right in the middle of a really deep discussion about the lyrics of an R.E.M. song when I noticed that he was looking just a bit weepy.

“Go on then,” I said encouragingly, “help yourself man. No standing on ceremony. If you are still a bit peckish I’ll get the lovely Mrs Hardy to boil up a couple of goldfish from the garden pond. They just might see you over till tea time.”

Of course, I’d put my foot in it again. It turns out he wasn’t; actually crying with hunger.

“Whatever’s the matter?” I asked moving into caring, father-like mode.

“I was just thinking that we don’t get to do this at my place,” he replied. “You know, like just sit around and shoot the breeze. I was enjoying it so much it really moved me somewhat.”

Well, I must admit that I thought it must have truly moved him ”somewhat” if, for even a passing moment, he had been put off his stroke in the scoffing department. But the point is, I think, reasonably well made. ‘Fact is that, in our house, it can be a challenge getting a word in edgeways. So, do you ever have the same problem? Do you have kids who interrupt each other when you are around? Or do they all behave with just incredible and impeccable manners? Do you ever have to get to the point of shouting “Can you all just pipe down and give a body a bit of peace and quiet in his own home?” Well, do you?

I’m sorry. I know I wander off at a tangent far too easily but you seem to have the knack of drawing stuff out of me just when I am least expecting it.

Which brings me round full circle to the real business in hand. I have been sussed.

For over thirty years I have been trying to spring surprises on Ruth. I long to manage it just the once but I think I am condemned to failure in this area of life. It all began with the first serious present I ever bought for her. It was a wristwatch. I bought it in Leeds when we went out on a Christmas shopping trip. I worked so hard at disappearing for a short while. I had a great excuse and took only moments to do the deal as I had well and truly done my homework. I knew exactly which shop to go to, how much it cost, make and model number. I got back with the watch burning a hole in my pocket.

“Where have you been?” she asks me.

“Oh, just…”

“Getting me a watch?”

“Well, err, err, no, err not exactly…”

“What do you mean, “Not exactly”?”

I can’t bore you with the rest of the sordid details – how apparently my mouth turns up into a sort of wry smile when I try to lie, how the words fail me as I try to explain myself.

The present case in point is not important. It’s more the principle of the thing, and I am beginning to think that you have had some kind of a hand in the matter.

My other dad was good at this kind of thing too. Always knowing stuff about me. It was like he was operating CCTV cameras on the streets of our village before we even had a television set of our own at home. (It was years before I uncovered the secret of his spy network. Thankfully this was just in time for me to work up my own version of it for use on my own kids.)

There was the time we (the other kids off our street mostly) decided to have a fire. Matches had to be bought after money had been “found” from somewhere or other. Someone had to go to the pit canteen for the matches and that someone was me. Everything went swimmingly. In fact we got on like a house on fire. All was consumed and we went home. Dad then appeared and asked about the fire.

“What fire?” (Was that a wry kind of smile accompanied by…)

“You know full well what fire. The canteen lady just happened to mention that you had called in for matches “For my dad like.” She saw me when I came off my shift.”

At this point all reason left me as I launched into a full frontal denial of all things incendiary. Unfortunately, the lingering smell of wood smoke and the singed appearance of my eye-length fringe may have helped give the game away. Rear facing parts of my anatomy began to sting and give off heat enough to match the front facing parts which had recently been exposed to the fire. It was certainly an afternoon to remember.

Which brings me unerringly back to you and your part in all this. It is just the way you get into the things that happen without actually appearing to be there at all. My daughter Laura made some sense of it once when she said that she didn’t get involved in some scam or other with her mates.

“Why not?” I wondered out loud. “I mean, it’s not as if I was even there.”

“Well, I knew that you wouldn’t have liked it” she said wandering off about her business and letting me work that one out for myself.

For some reason or another – maybe because I knew that I was thinking of writing to you – the smoking episode crossed my mind. My other dad was very philosophical about it. His spy network had provided him with all the necessary evidence. I suppose I might be even grown up enough now to credit him with some common sense of his own and admit that he worked most of it out for himself. The missing matches (not matches again!), the sauntering off just a smidgeon too early for the school bus, the packet of fags he found under my bed (that might have tipped the balance somewhat.) But, philosophical he definitely was.

“There’s not much I can say is there? I’ve smoked since I was eight. I wish you didn’t but I can’t stop you I suppose.”

End of story, or so I thought.

I managed to develop a well-rounded and satisfying habit. Forty a day was well within my sights with more during periods of stress. French cigarettes were always the most welcome and I remember a particularly generous gift for my twenty-first birthday. (Generous but, as it turned out, endued with a certain built-in redundancy.)

Two days after the event, and with plenty of the Gallic treats still waiting to be consumed it all came to a halt. The fire of desire fizzled as it were.

I was working at a local pub (as you will well recall.) As it happens, I had been chatting to a number of the customers about my “new-found” dad. (That would be you I suppose.) It was time to stop serving and (oh blessed relief) time to light up one of the French beauties lying under the counter. We had been just taking over the possibilities of us having a second dad (like yourself.)

I was setting a match to the Gauloise as one of my customers finished off his pint. “We’ve all got our gods,” he said as he consigned his beer to the depths and seemingly pointed at me lighting up at the same time.

To this day, I can’t say that I saw you there. Equally, to this day I can’t be certain that you were not somewhere lurking behind the bar. All I know is that you could at least have been there in spirit and I felt a bit like our Laura (“Well I knew that you wouldn’t have liked it”.)

The fact of the whole matter is, as well you know, I didn’t light up then, and I haven’t since. I must be a good fifty-four years between fags now. It’s my record for giving up.

As I look back on it – and so very many more incidents like it – I am put strangely in mind of my granddad. He was my mum’s dad and I found him irresistible. I think I loved nearly everything about him. The way he spoke – broad, slow, colourful Norfolk. The way he walked – legs supported by marvellous boots and iron contraptions since a road accident robbed him of much of his own power and ability. The way he sang everywhere he went. How he chain-smoked and could still beat anyone at billiards whilst blinded by the ever-present “Wild Woodbine”. The way he ate – deliberate and with a deep sense of thankfulness and enjoyment.

H particularly loved winkles.

“Nuthin’ better boy” he would declare as he inserted one of my grandma’s needles into the shell and picked out the “little booty”.

Accompanying this would be a slice off a brown loaf, fresh from his work at the bakery and buttered with no concern whatsoever for cholesterol or any other such related disease. His whole face would wrinkle up in delight as he made a banquet from so little. Looking back on it now, when he was eating and when he was sleeping were the only occasions I can imagine him being without the ever-present “Woodbine” – one out of pure necessity and the other out of pure and unbounded personal satisfaction.

It is that winkling action that reminds me so much of you. There was granddad, needle in hand, eyes screwed up to the task. He never missed, and each winkle came out oh so cleanly (“No trouble at all boy!”) And now I can’t think of you as being anything other than terrific with the needle. There you are – just out of sight - needle poised, and you give me the feeling that you can’t wait for some things to be out. Funny thing is, I don’t even seem to miss them when they are gone.

How good is that?

So. I’ve been sussed. Seen through. Just a bit uncovered.

I think, if I close my eyes for a moment, I catch a fleeting glimpse of you, some fresh pulled sea creature skewered, your eyes screwed up to the task and a look of pure, unbounded personal satisfaction on your face.
More love than I used to think I had in me,
Pete

come on home

I love you
as I love my own.
For, by your choice,
that's what you are.
By your own will
(that makes it twice the thing!)
And that's how Jesus sees us now;
yes bought,
but coming to Him
by our own desire
sets hearts afire -
both his and ours,
both yours and mine.
But finer still
(as He views the thing)
is how His father warms
to this old theme.
His words come fast,
and tumble out -
can't help themselves -
as He gives word to heart,
"I love you
as I love my own."

show far show good...

Overheard between low-level passes at the airshow...

“Hey mate! My son has been asking all year if that man who salutes him will be on the air-show gate. He was over the moon when he saw you. I don’t really understand it.”
“Well it’s because God likes both of you and does nice things for you.”

“Hey. The weather looks a bit bad for the flying. Fingers crossed for tomorrow eh?”
“Nah. Let’s pray and ask our Dad for something good!”
“Hi! So the sun is shining this morning then? Did you do that talking to God stuff?”
“Yup!”
“And you really think it works?
“Yes. He likes you, you know.”

“Oh sir, why the long face?”
“I was pick-pocketed yesterday at the show and they took every penny I had. I really don’t even know if I have enough petrol to get back home tonight, but I came to make the best of the last day.”
“Oh man! So bad. I can’t think of anything to say to make it better, but I will ask if my Dad in heaven can help out.”
“Well I never. I don’t know what made me look behind a different seat to mine in the grandstand. But there was my wallet. It was jammed in where it must have landed yesterday. Amazing thing is that there’s £200 in it – all still there!”
“Well that’s great. I could only pray for you sir. I think God likes you.”
(We gave everybody back their money donated in the emergency relief whip round later. Moral? Do something in approximately the right direction and God might just go the extra mile!)


“Morning madam. I was thrilled to see you walking so well this year. Even with the sticks you look so good now. It was a wheelchair last year and I’ve been asking God if He could see his way to improving things. I know it was so hard for you.”
“Yes, and that’s not all. I met my future husband on the grandstand here last year. He’s with me now. It’s been a fantastic year even though I still have a lot of pain.”
“Ever get the feeling that God likes you madam?”

“We still remember your bad jokes even months after the air-show. We sort of look forward to seeing you again despite them.”
Well thank you very much, we aim to please and we only want to brighten up your day. God likes you, you know.”
“Well, maybe. All we know is that there isn’t another air-show gate with entertainment thrown in!”

“Can we take you home with us?”
“No madam, but you can take my Dad – actually, He’s going your way anyway!”

“What sort of church are you part of?”
“Er. Church church!”…You know, Jesus is making it and he’s like restoring us.”
“What?”
“Well, making us what he always planned us to be. You know, more like “Will the real me please stand up?” and it’s starting to happen.”
“I’m looking for some of that.”
"Look. I’ll talk to my Dad in Heaven. You came back to the air-show next year and tell me how He surprised you. It won’t all be over by then but you will be on the journey!”
“Really?”
“Really!”
“You think so?”
“I know so!”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because He likes you!”

Love,
Pete

rising damp...

It's been a bit wet down our way lately. I know there are folks out there who have had it much worse. But this is England... and this is June. At least a month's rain fell in less than 24 hours and huge areas of the country have been transformed. The whole geography of the place - if only for a few days - has been redrawn. Hillocks are islands, slight depressions are lakes. Homes are aquariums, streets are rivers. Cars have become submarines,wellingtons the latest high street fashion.

Speaking of cars...Suddenly, people who have lived in an area for years need to develop a kind of on-board sonar just to get around. We are fine with what is above water, but figuring out what lies just a metre down below is really tough. Getting it right or getting it wrong - for some at least - has been literally a life or death decision.

Anyway, it's very reassuring to know that it's all down to climate change. I mean, as long as we know the cause surely we can effect some kind of a solution. Maybe, but that doesn't get Worcestershire's next cricket match played, does it?
What if the spiritual climate changed just as quickly. How now would the land lie? How would we find our way then?




Sonar? The book I'm currently reading talks about walking by faith more than relying on what you can actually see. It's full of the wildest suggestions - like God saying that He would send his spirit to live in us so that we'd have a kind of on-board sonar for figuring out what lies beneath the waves. Could be a kind of thought for the day, couldn't it?

Hope it stays nice for you.

Pete

answers on a postcard please to...

9 year old:

"Where was the most exciting place you ever prayed Mister?"

"Er. Good question Kid. Lying on the glass floor of the CN Tower in Toronto, looking down at the ants crawling into the stadium next door to watch the Argos. My wife wanted me to dance on the glass floor with her."

So. Where was your most exciting place?

Answers in the usual way.

Anticipatorily yours

Pete

to humbly stumble, singularly in the company of more than we may think

If you could stand in my shoes,

see the world through my eyes,

your certainty and your triumph

may grow thin.

When expectation disappoints you.

When tears flow like rivers,

when all the circles

count you out not in.

There's a place of comfort

for lonesome weary travellers,

for all the sinking sailors

throwing excess cargo over the side.

This I know for sure now,

there's path well-trodden,

I've been to the gates of grace and they're open wide


There's a killing ground for demons.

A hanging frame for torment.

A life poured out for judgement's final cry.

Where blood was spent for liars,

for desperate last throw gamblers,

for addicts and for wanderers under dark skies.

Take it from an expert

in undercover operations,

take it from a man

who stumbled on his pride.

There's a place for losers,

for lonesome desperadoes -

I've been to the gates of grace and they're open wide


The cross still stands.

The blood still flows.

Forgiveness runs

and love abides

The welcome holds.

The friendship sure -

Sees no colour

takes no sides.


There's a place I've found

where the worn and bruised can come and lie.

I've been to the gates,

up to the gates,

I've found the gates of grace

and they're open wide.

ooh! a blow below the belt

So I was working with a group of ten year olds.

"Come and answer their questions," said the teacher.

"What about?"

"Your faith, what you do, why you do it. You know? Basic stuff."

"OK," says I, "'love to!"

We were about twenty minutes in when this lad says, "Sir. What does it feel like to be loved?"

Got that out there?

We'll start with the easy ones and work up OK?

So, answers in the comment section please. Oh, and please remember that some kid out there is looking to you for any help he can get.

What does it feel like to be loved?

Love,

Pete

starlight express(ion)

I am there at almost anytime -
rain or shine -
anytime.
When the deluge parts
cross-members holding hearts,
or scorching sun beats
the will almost (not quite) to death.
Did I say “almost anytime”?
Did I slip out of mind
and knit the “all” with “most”
to leave a fraction of a chink -
a moment in a lifetime's gap?
Mind the gap!
Step swiftly on!
Too soon the train is gone
(but Grace-land has another on the way.)
Once more I say -
anytime,
rain,
shine,
sun,
moon,
stars...
well there's a thought.
A star becomes two stars
(but one by some mystery entire.)
Night fire -
warming guiding in the dark
(no dark when starlight marks a course.)
Mark's?
A course?
His course?
Not his but His
of course.
Not his but theirs -
now come full circle in this "two is one"...
can this be true?
That this course,
His course,
charted out and clear
is truly
madly
deeply
just for
You?
You one,
you two?
You two,
you one -
bright
nightfire.

elevated thinking can lift your day

Dear Dad,

Sorry it’s been a while but I think it was like I had my braces stuck on the gatepost over something. You know what I mean by that do you? Something came up and I couldn’t get myself past it. There I was going back to it in my mind. To be honest with you it was like walking round in circles – always coming back to the same old thing and yet never being quite on top of it. So, you see, my braces were stuck on the gatepost of this thing and I was somehow being pulled at every time I tried to walk away from it.

All right. I’ll come clean with you. The fact of the matter is I fancied a new car. Well no. I fancied a new car for Ruth. She works hard (this is for your eyes only.) She does work so hard and spends ages in her “mobile office”. (Actually it’s a sort of travelling chocolate wrapper collection point if what I find when I clear it out is anything to go by.) I’ve already said too much – if by any chance she ever gets her hands on this letter and even sniffs a rat of praise for what she does I’ve had it.

Now that just puts me in mind of so many people. You might have come across a few yourself. Those folks that do stuff and then when you try to tell them it’s good, or that they might be half decent you get the “Give over will you!” or “I wish! You should see me on a wet Wednesday afternoon when the kids have trailed muck in on the carpet” or ”I’m not what you think I am you know…I’m no saint!” Personally, I find that sort a bit difficult to handle. It’s like the moment you have anything decent to say to them they stick their head down the neck of their jumper and the rest of the conversation gets increasingly woolly. There you are in the presence of someone in whose shadow you walk. You can’t remember them making a single demand of you. They only have to walk into the room and your life moves on like the Starship Enterprise shifting into warp factor twenty-seven. Clouds part, hunger abates, longings cease etc., etc., etc.

“You do me so much good,” you say.

“”It was nothing,” they reply as the broken shards of your pitiful life are miraculously drawn together in the right order and something frighteningly akin to love starts to stick them to each other with only the tiniest scars of experience to show for the whole sorry mess. “No, really, you would have done the same for me”.

Oh, I would, would I?
Well anyway. She simply must not get a whiff of the “Well done you good and faithful servant”. (Now where have I heard that before? And just how are we going to learn to cope with such unwavering praise when it does come our way I wonder? And just how are we meant to get any practice in for it unless we do some of it to others whilst at the same time allowing them to waft a bit of it in our direction?) Back to the car!

I know it was coming round to the time for a change. High mileage, one or two repairs fast coming over the horizon and the door bins were overflowing with the milk chocolate of human kindness. Ruth didn’t make a song and dance about it of course, just the odd comment or two. Someone at work had just had a new convertible – “nothing too ostentatious mind you”. Maybe a four wheel drive affair? “I just think that it might be nice to have a bit of fun.” (Thankfully, she hadn’t noticed that my mileage was creeping up a bit and that I was getting ready for a few – albeit minor – repairs myself. “Maybe a convertible next time? Perhaps a two leg drive?”)

That’s when I think I got my braces stuck on the gatepost. I found myself going out of my way to pass car sales places. Stopping off now and then to make a few discrete enquiries. I was a man on a mission - but sneaky. A gumshoe-buyer. An undercover agent in the world of pressed tin and re-cyclable plastic. An air-con-man extraordinaire.

“You’re a bit late love. Been anywhere interesting?”

“Who me?”

“Well yes. It was you I had in mind. You are the man I live with aren’t you?”

“No. Well yes, but, err no. Nowhere in particular.”

“You’ve been looking at cars haven’t you?”

And so the seedy and seamier side of my existence took over. Oh the lies! Oh the scheming machinations of the human mind! How hard we try for what we love!

“It’s no good. I know full well when you’re lying. And anyway, we can’t afford it. I don’t want anything too showy I couldn’t justify it. I’ll have a Fiat Punto.”

Now, no disrespect to Fiat. And certainly none intended to the Punto – in fact it has turned out to be just fine actually. The real problem is that I really don’t think I was buying it for Ruth at all. And like when she buys a dress for a very special occasion I had a sneaking suspicion that Ruth would end up back at the first shop she looked in. Same with the car – we went back to square one, threw a six and climbed the oh so familiar ladder that had been staring us in the face all the time. But why all the running round in circles? To be frank, I was earnest to impress that’s what! The trouser support department was hung up on the upright beam of longing, and the longing was for a touch of the “He’s the best…yes, he does spoil me doesn’t he? ‘Don’t know what I’d do without him…a real treasure…”

So that’s it. This is the now quite feeble sounding excuse for not writing earlier. Selfishness, pure and simple – well simple anyway, if not so pure. And this brings me to the point I had in mind when I sat down to write in the first place. If I’m not trying like mad to get somewhere whilst being pulled backwards at the same time, I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time running around in circles. In fact, I think that I am becoming something of an expert at doing the two together and at the same time. (A bit like that old party trick. The one where you pat your head with one hand and rub your tummy with the other. You should try it sometime – my other dad showed it me once when I was a little kid.)

If I’m beginning to understand how it works – and writing to you now is helping to clarify the whole sorry business of it all for me. The fact is I find myself wanting so much for myself. To get it takes so much effort. I have to really go out of my way to put all the facets of the plan together. Then I have to start conning others like I have already begun to con myself, stretching the whole thing just one step too far. If I’m not running round in circles, I’m running in a straight line but one that takes me away from the real problem I have to face. See, I think it’s me that needs the sorting out. The car is a bit irrelevant I suppose.

This all puts me in mind of some difficulty I had in a lift.

I don’t know if I told you yet - maybe you have already heard from other sources – but I go out to Romania from time to time. It’s family business of a sort. I go with my mate Norman. Now there’s a guy a bit short on guile. He’s more in your mould than mine I’m thinking.

We were popping in to see a friend of ours. He runs a Christian radio station. Well it’s not really a Christian radio station. I don’t think it has made any sort of personal commitment or anything like that. It is more a radio station for Christians. Actually, Naxus (the chap with the radio station in question) thinks that it is more in the market for non-Christians if you get my drift. Anyway, we were in the lift having left his ninth floor Christian/non-Christian radio station when I got bored between floors four and three. Norman had spotted something in my personal demeanour which indicated that trouble could be afoot. A loving yet certain glower radiated from him and filled the small compartment (already a little crowded, what with there being me, him of the glowering visage, two bags, a guitar case and a translator, driver/general fac totem.)

I was trying out the lift for any signs of springiness. The floor had a certain satisfactory measure of give in it. There was just the faintest hint of a bounce so I gave it a go. One quick hop, a little stretching of the cables, one very loud bang and our downward progress halted immediately and, seemingly, forever.

All buttons were pressed until I found the one marked in Romanian for “Alarm”. I rang it once and no one came to the other side of the jammed lift door. I was beginning to play over in my mind various submarine disaster movies I have seen. You know the sort of thing? Men shuffling quietly off this mortal coil as oxygen grows thinner and beads of sweat slip dramatically down stalwart looking faces. The look of relief as they hear a faint tapping on the hull and the rising sense of hope as the radio operator (the one who can do the Morse code really well) spells out “Help at hand…cutting equipment set up and ready to go…hot food and warm drinks standing by in the galley…anyone in there got a box of matches for the oxy-acetylene?”

I played the opening to Beethoven’s Fifth on the bell. Norman panicked, I played more, and the fac totem rolled his eyes in growing disbelief. Deciding that something more useful should be done he gave the door a good kicking and it swung open with the surface of floor three some feet above the level of the lift floor. We climbed out, paused for a quick gathering of photographic evidence and legged it down the stairs as the door locks of the flat next door to the lift shaft began to shake rattle and roll.

I should have known that it would end in tears. I just get something in my mind and then push and push until finally I discover the edge of the envelope and have to do a runner. I’ve been like it all my life. (I’ll spare you the story of how I put a match to the neck of an ‘empty’ meths bottle just to see if the fumes would burn. It’s a wonder to me to this day that I have been able to grow a beard!)

Come to think of it, my other dad tried his best to sort me out on this one but I don’t think he ever quite got through on it. The trouble with his master plan was me. I could see through his show. The older I got, the more I saw where I got the running business from. My dad was an expert in his own right, so why should I listen to him? That’s where you come in. Ever since I started getting you into close up I’ve found that there doesn’t seem to be much room for personal manoeuvre. I get the feeling that there isn’t much, if anything, you have ever run away from. Nor does there appear to be anything you have ever gotten yourself hung up on either. I don’t seem to be able to turn anything back on you when you raise it with me.

Well on that note I think I’ll bring this short note to an end.

I did, by the way, go back to the radio station. Naxus was really nice to me – much better than I think I could have ever deserved. On leaving he just stepped out of his office door as I was entering the lift.

“Don’t you mess with my lift!” he called jovially giving it his best God Father, Mafioso shot.

Write soon.

Love,

Pete.

Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat

We all know you can’t ignore a baby. Whether it’s the crying in the night with all its accompanying tiredness and frustration, or the wonder of this tiny piece of creation, there’s still no getting away from it – you can’t ignore a baby.

Switch to heaven. “I want to get their attention,” says God, “I just want to tell them I love them.”

“Give them an earthquake,” say the angels…”No a flood”…”Thunder and lightning would be better.”

“No,” says God as he reveals his masterstroke “I’ll send a baby, I know them, I made them and they can’t ignore a baby.”

The funny thing is, like it or not, two thousand years later we are still talking about Jesus. After all, you can’t ignore a …

much love, etc, etc, etc...

Pete

Now you don't!...Now you see it!...

So I get hold of this photo of my Grandad from the First World War. There he is, sitting in some lean-to affair in Northern France in his shirtsleeves. The guy next to him is in the full kit and looking very much the business. Grandad is pretty much as I remember him from childhood – wry smile, ears to die for, sleeves up and ready to work. Don’t get me wrong. He was very capable of an extremely smart turnout. His polished boots were something to write home about. But he was always, as far as I am concerned, a man of the soil. A real countryman. And years in the northeast of England never defeated his slow Norfolk drawl.

Anyway. I have this picture and want to find out as much as possible about what is going on in it. What stories does it have to tell us of how these men lived and …? Obviously, I know that Rowland survived, but of the other man I know nothing personal at all about him. He remains a mystery.

Well, I scan in the snap and come up with a fairly hazy shot – two men, a field and a shed.
I scan it again and ask the scanner to give me more Dots per Inch.
Now I’ve got two men, a field, a shed and more detail than I had before.
At 4,800 dots per inch the scanner told me the computer couldn’t handle any more. But hey, now I’ve got a clear picture of the cap badge (8th Norfolk Regiment), the flash on the uniform sleeve (Regimental Signaller), Grandad’s rifle (definitely not the standard issue British Lee Enfield), the SA Tucker box in the corner, a card on top of the shed which seems to be French (“Haut…????????”) and what might be the field telephone on the side of the shed.

Oh, if they could only speak!
Well the moral of this story is, the higher the resolution of the scanner, the clearer the picture becomes and each stage was accompanied by either laughter or tears or a mixture of both.
And so, for me, it has been with Jesus. Every situation along the way seems to have upped the resolution of my on-board scanner so that I find I can look at Him in a much more enlarged format than before. Instead of looking like a pixelated, cubist stippling of some vague character from history I find the picture tells a fuller, sweeter story.
There you go.
Thanks Grandad.
Much Love,

Pete

P.S. I love the ears.

Can't stop...on my way to a meeting!

Minutes of meeting of anyone who happened to be passing

held at 8:30am, Tuesday 8th May 2007 at my place.

• Present: me, you - anybody who happens to be out there


• Apologies: ah, now you have it. This was left on the desk just a moment ago:

Sorry for leading so many of you up the garden path.
“You Christians – head in the clouds, all heaven in the future and no
earthly good today!”

You are right of course. We got so tied up with Heaven we thought
today was not all that important – especially if it happened to be
anything like good fun.

Actually, God is really interested in ‘Today’. All our yesterdays are
gone and we can’t live in them. Tomorrow has too many problems to
ponder without going out of our heads. But today? Today is the day
to ask God to be involved in our lives because today is the nearest
thing there is to eternity, this side of eternity.

• Any Other Business: none. Meeting closed at 8:31am.

Love,

Pete

P.S. - don't forget the photo caption competition. Post you best shot on the blog

Dear Dad...letters from afar...

Dear Dad,
With me it’s always the starting that proves difficult. I’ve laid awake nights just contemplating this moment. Where to begin? How to turn on the tap and let it all come streaming out? Maybe if I knew the secret of keeping the channels open, if I didn’t wander off so easily about my own business I wouldn’t find myself having to write at all. Writing is for the far off isn’t it. Writing is for holidays: “Wish you were here…weather fine…food reasonable…flight abominable…sun hot…sea wet…home soon…love, Pete.” Writing is for business: “Please find enclosed my return of the 5th inst…yours as in the third party…faithfully (but never quite sincerely) yours, P. Hardy (Peter Hardy, BA, Cert.Ed. RSA Typing/Shorthand, Cycling Proficiency Badge, Leaping Wolf and St. John’s First Aid Certificate.) Writing is for the poor in speech and weak of heart: “I’m writing because I find it so hard to say just what I mean…and to mean just what I say...hoping this hits the mark…gets me off the hook…saves me the tears…shores up my pride…with love (and hoping it somehow might just bounce back), Pete.
I could have called. That’s it, I could have called. What would it take? A minute or two out of the day? It’s like clearing up the backlog of washing and ironing. What kind of commitment does it take? A little here, a little there. But no! Once a week or so I make true pilgrimage to the basket. Not the passing acknowledgement of the pile’s presence. Not the “Well there it is, a bit done now will save all that bother later.” Never let it be said that I don’t know how to chill out, hang out and leave out. The job grows with each passing nod to the need. The thing with pilgrimages is that they seem to require of us something more than the truly, deeply madly, passionately, lovingly lived life. A pilgrimage calls out for careful arrangements to be made. There’s a pre-planned cleansing of the soul, a kind of spiritual deck clearing in readiness for an out-of-the-ordinary but in-body experience. This will require effort. This will demand sacrifice. Martyrdom (of a thankfully temporary nature) may well be on the cards and even dealt onto the table in self-gratifying view of others. So there we are – once in a while I set to with a vengeance. I feed the cleansing mill with days and days of accumulated muck, drape every available radiator with the drying out (pilgrimages seem often to be accompanied by inclement weather – heightens the sense of personal cost) and cry (poor tortured soul) as I take the steep learning curve associated with ironing when more regular practice with fewer articles could have by now delivered to me a Master’s Degree in the mystic art of getting the sleeves right.
Ah yes. I could have called. I could have simply made a little effort, picked up the phone and saved myself the postage, the walk to the post box and the hours spent wondering what kind of look there would be on your face when you read what I finally plucked up the courage to write.
“Dear Dad…” I’ve spent nights tossing and turning. I mean, I’m a dad too. I know what it is to hope for, long for, ache for dad-kid stuff. (Keep this to yourself, but I do sometimes wish that there might be a bit more two way traffic in this family business. I have paid the dues, bought the rights and all that.) I suppose this comes as a bit rich now doesn’t it? A quick poke at the delete key could save a bit of personal embarrassment between us. It just strikes me that perhaps you haven’t slept much either over the years. Sometimes it feels that I never quite manage to slumber or sleep where my own kids are concerned.
Do you know? I think things are a spot better already. “Dimidium facti qui coepit habet” (thanks Horace.) Here I am, maybe for the first time really trying to get through to you. Perhaps a bit of gratitude is called for? Not from you but from me. I did get your letters by the way. I kept a bit quiet about it at the time but I was thankful for the helping hand you gave from time to time. Truth be told, I think that it was more than from time to time. I think you even boasted about me a bit from what I gather (that tended to get back to me from others rather than direct from you to me but then again, maybe I wasn’t paying enough attention.) Well thanks anyway. No really. Thanks a lot. Well even more than that now I come to think of it. I’m generally beginning to get the hang of this. Now I’ve begun I have the work half done (thanks again Horace).
This all seems so familiar to me now. It gets complicated for a little while but I remember when my own dad had bother with this communication business.
Hang on. “Dear Dad…” “My own dad…” This puts me in mind of a conversation I had in school with a lad. Having almost slain another for speaking ill of his mum we retired to the office. A cup of tea. Half an hour of calming and soothing and out comes all this love for his mum.
“I’d do anything for her sir. Anything. She looked after us when my dad was – well like, you know, knocking her about like. He was always going on at her, always trying to hurt her. I cried ‘cos I was too small to do anything about it. Best thing he did was to leave. I have a new dad now. I mean, he’s not my real dad but he’s more a dad than my real dad was if you get me. He’s taken time with me like my other dad never did. He’s nice to my mum so he’s more like the dad I would have wanted to have. He’s my dad really but it’s complicated sir.”
There must be millions out there with the same kind of tale. Oh, maybe not the violence and deep troubles of my lad at school, but still juggling the issues arising from two dads. “Where do my loyalties lie?” “Who am I anyway?” And then folks say they can’t understand Jesus having two dads. His situation smacks of the ultra modern if you ask me. Dad bunks off leaving a new one to do the business as it were. He gives him everything he can. You know, food, clothes, a roof over his head and a chance at the family business. And then the lad goes looking up the biological pa. Gets in touch with his real self. Talks more about the absent pater than the present one.
So here I am with two dads. And my dad – not you of the “Dear Dad…here I am trying to sort out a letter to you” variety, but the other one who, now I come to think of it would probably welcomed this kind of thing if I had just got around to it – had a bit of a falling out about his dad. This makes three dads and counting, and, like riding a bike, if I stop and think about this for long enough there may well be tears before bedtime. I’ll persevere and hope this comes out as I hoped it would.
So here I am with two dads…and my other dad had this falling out with his and this led to some ripples of less than good will flowing between him and his sister. Life’s never simple is it? “Ripples” is something of an understatement. Let’s try “and so they did take themselves off unto diametrically opposed lands apparently bereft of all modern means of communication despite both having phones and a post box on the corner of the street.” In short, they didn’t speak to each other for let’s call it ten years. Now, I don’t know how it was for his sister in all this. What I do know is that my dad wouldn’t hear of talking to her. What I don’t have a clue about is what went on in the cold dark watches of the night. You know, the time when most of our secret thoughts haul themselves out from under the bedclothes of the mind, strip off their Sunday best and parade themselves for what they truly are – horrifying.
Time passed. Some were born; some learned to drive (more later) and it was given to some to die. A death occurred which called us back to our homeland. During a lull in funereally related duties I offered my dad a ride out in the car (he not, never having been, nor ever destined to be a driver) and me being one of those who twixt life and death had mastered the necessary skills, parted with a shed load of money and been delivered of a licence. Always one for a novelty dad took me up on the offer and I took him to his sister’s house (well it was my car, I had the keys and getting out of the passenger seat at anything over fifteen miles an hour is hardly an option is it?)
“What’s this?” he asked in typically northern fashion.
”Your sister’s” I replied having mastered the nuances of his particular language.
“I’m not going in there”, he replied, linguistically pushing out the boat somewhat.
“Well I am and you’ll look a bit daft sitting the car while I do” I said.
I knocked on the door while he rocked from foot to foot behind me.

“Why it’s you,” his sister said as she opened the door. “The kettle’s on and I’ve a few scones. Come in.”
I spent a wonderful half hour wandering around the local cemetery inspecting the dead while the living put to death the stuff that finally allowed them to get on with living. The funny thing is they never missed calling each other, regular as clockwork until my dad – you know, my real dad – died.
There we are. It’s just a story. One of many about how we seem to be so good at not quite getting our act together, and then, when we do, it’s like we come to life. I’ve a fleeting sense of that happening now. Ever since I made the first teetering steps towards this moment. “Dear Dad…”
Here I am with a chance to make good. My other dad (the “real” one) didn’t do such a half bad job. Maybe I can get that off my chest if you’ll allow me to write again. Meanwhile, the more I think about it, the better the fist of it you seem to have made with me. I feel better for not bottling it all up. It’s like the pile of ironing diminishing because I took a few moments out of the day. It hasn’t been such a hill to climb after all.
Must close for now. Things to do, people to see. Did you know that I have got on pretty well so far? I’d like to think that you could be proud of me. Maybe even speak well of me some more should you feel the need of a little fatherly boasting.
Hope this finds you, as it leaves me – well actually no. I hope this finds you better for getting it and I feel so much better for the sending.
I will write again soon. Oh, and I do love you.

Pete

Hands across the ocean

Canada? February? Wedding? Can’t beat it!
Our son Mark married Bethany at six o’clock on a Wednesday night – snow on the ground and temperatures hovering at a steady –6C. Good do though. Lots of friends. A warm welcome of a winter’s eve. Party on to just short of midnight and a blistering snowstorm next day with a trip to a very arctic feeling Niagara Falls.

We had a call the other day to say that the couple had enjoyed their two-month anniversary (is that Pearl? Cotton? Plastic? – not sure.)

An old Celtic blessing to be spoken over a marriage goes something like this:
“May you not be gathered to the Father until your children have found love.”
It stuck in my mind. I turned it over and over and saw the sense of it.
This year is significant for us anyway – Mark married already, and our daughter getting married in September. As it happens, it’s 30 years for Ruth and I. So by the end of the year we’ll have newcomers, just beginners and older hands on the marriage road
The Bible says that the only picture we have of Christ’s love for the Church is marriage. So in September we’ll have a shot of all three couples together – setting off, early days, and well on the way. And with that snapshot (which I look forward to with mounting pride) we have an insight into the character of Jesus and his staying power – the same, Yesterday, Today and Forever.

OOh Err... light in here, bit dark out there!

This is all new to me.

Hope that it gets some kind of attention.

Tell me. Just where does anyone begin with this blogging thing?

Good job it's light in here.

I'm fresh in from Canada and Romania and settling down to a run in UK.

I'm hoping to post news and views and stuff I write.

The competition out there is FIERCE.

I won't hold my breath. Do you find the competition out there FIERCE?

Well welcome to

ROUX HAMMER!

This is really only a tester so bye for now

(and love of course)

To check me out some more go...

http://hardyquick.googlepages.com