Practical Thoughts

Dear Reader, As you may well know, I am not a conventional Christian, but over the years I have come to realise that all spiritual ways lead to the same end. That all routes lead to God, by whatever name you call the creator/maintainer of the Universe - and, indeed, the Omniverse. But Christianity possesses perhaps the greatest symbol to illustrate the intended purpose of life, and that is through the teachings and physical sacrifice of the Master Jesus. I will not repeat the whole story here, but you must all know it. It is about selflessness and sacrifice. It is the realisation that life is not what it seems. It is to realise that what is intended is the crucifixion of one's worldly self to resurrect as the true self. Jesus reveals that teaching, fully sacrificing his own life as an ultimate example. To clarify, the following is an extract from an article about Easter and the Message of Jesus, as written by a Catholic priest a few years ago: Immediately the husk of the ...

Dear Reader, To ponder on: People will become fed up with worldliness. They will have had enough of it and will realise that there is no point in being the way they are, because it brings them no real joy. The world is becoming weary, and there is no real joy unless we have turned around to seek reality. Strains and stresses are everywhere. If it's not Brexit that is causing chaos, then it's something else, and the "something else" includes topics that I would say are of greater magnitude in importance (such as climate change), yet they have been pushed onto the back burner. If you were to ask me, I'd say that Brexit (though an issue that has to be dealt with at some point) has been nothing but a huge distraction from more real issues. And if the main and underlying issues had been addressed, the topic of values with emphasis on love, the Brexit matter may have simply died a death as people would have come to see more about reality and not be hijacked ...

Dear Reader, Journalist Ian Birrell, in his lead article in the i newspaper yesterday about the plight of the Yazidis , begins his final paragraph with: As we stand on the cusp of Brexit, we need to ask ourselves profound questions about national values. We have sent a message to the world that we are tearing down bridges and building walls. We have corroded our reputation as a sensible international player, diminished our global standing and demeaned the mother of parliaments with this humiliating debacle. The key words (for the purpose of my article) are: "we need to ask ourselves profound questions about national values. " Of course, Ian Birrell is talking essentially of the subject of his topic (the Yezidis), but his final words broaden the conversation to include the role that the West has been playing around the world, and although we like to think that Britain's role is essentially humanitarian, it is we in the West (Britain included) that has largely ...

Dear Reader, A believer (or knower) of God will, without hesitation, seek help from the object of his adoration, particularly when in some danger.  There are countless times when God's  protection   has been sought, but there are some stories about this aspect that stand out in ordinary human experience. Two such stories follow, the first about an American Army unit at war: Over 100 years ago, during World War I, the 91st Infantry Brigade was preparing to enter combat in Europe. The Brigade Commander, a devout Christian, assembled his troops and gave each of them a little card on which was printed the 91st Psalm, the same number Psalm as their brigade. They agreed to recite that Psalm daily. After they had begun praying the Psalm, the 91st Brigade was engaged in three of the bloodiest battles of World War I — Chateau Thierry, Belle Wood and the Argonne. Other American units that fought in the same battles had up to 90 percent casualties, but the 91st Brigade did not...

Dear Reader, In a world where obfuscation creates a fog in our daily lives whenever we read a newspaper or watch the TV news, what appeared this week in the press should not be surprising. But it was: to me at least.  A few times in the week I purchase the only so-called 'quality newspaper' that my budget will allow: the i . Generally, it gives me a reasonable view of what is happening in the affairs of this world, but there are quite a few times when it has let me down. And this week was one of those weeks where it let me down. I suppose my reactions are as a result of having a good insight into Indian culture (for a Westerner, at least) as I had been following the early stories of the India-Pakistan conflict and gained a clear perspective that India felt it had to take some punitive action as a result of terrorist activities in Kashmir, by a group that is based in Pakistan. That terrorist activity had killed 40. However, the way that the   i   (and the BB...

Dear Reader, For the past several years we seem to have been witnessing the drum beating to the sound of the word "division". Since probably the referendum on Scottish independence, the momentum has been quickly increased to bring about the Brexit referendum, which in turn has brought big "division" within the ranks of Labour and Tory alike. It rather looks as though we have a UK that is both leader-less and rudder-less. And let's not forget what is happening in the USA, and elsewhere. But perhaps this situation ought to be telling us something? And that is that though we all like to think we have a right to an individual point of view, the reality is that when the matter is taken to an extreme (as it has become) we don't know what we have left ourselves in for. We certainly did not know what Brexit meant in 2016 in terms of all the ramifications of having to settle an amicable agreement with our erstwhile European partners as well as the 48% (nearly...

Dear Reader, There are sometimes when I sit and reflect, and say to myself, "What else is there to write about?". And I don't write if what I'm thinking on is mere repetition or if I feel that it lacks sincerity or meaning. And external matters sometimes take their toll a little, and knock me off balance. Well, I sometimes allow them to knock me off balance as falling off your soapbox can bring you down to earth. So in the last few weeks I feel that I have been living in some kind of fog; a definite feeling of a lack of clarity when it comes to wielding the pen, though Brexit has not helped in this world of mystification! And I am only coming awake again as a result of reading a certain book on Friendship With God, and also by being moved by other writers' feelings on important issues of life. This powerful essay evokes reminders of how innately self-equipped we are, and this trite summary from the essay encapsulates a reminder of that: Technologie...

Dear Reader, The news may be disturbing that there are 5 erupting volcanoes in Indonesia, 6 in Central America and 4 in South America, in addition to 2 in the Mediterranean. And many more are in a state of 'unrest'. (For a full list see here ) The thought that such eruptions have taken place for aeons should not placate us when we consider that the number of eruptions has been irrevocably increasing and, using more reliable data, particularly in the last 200 years. These increases have interestingly enough) appeared to correspond to both the start of the Industrial Revolution and Consumerism and a significant increase in population (though see the caveat in the top left of the image), and the last 50 years or so show very significant increases. But in our disconnectedness, we probably think that all this - and Climate Change - is somehow a separate issue from the way we humans have been behaving. Do we really think that or are we accepting what is told to us t...

Dear Reader, Well, that time of the year has again come round - the one that most of us treat as a time to make children happy by giving them the presents they hoped for and for pursuing the mythology that exists about Christmas. But at least the theme of 'giving' continues to be emphasised, even though we mostly don't stop to think about what it's all about. And the people involved in these UK scenarios will be wanting to know a lot more about what Christmas is about as far as they are concerned: Some 597 homeless people died in England and Wales in 2017, an increase of 24% since 2013, according to the Office for National Statistics. The amount of homelessness is thought to be far greater than the Government admits to. In addition, a new analysis finds 130,000 kids will be homeless at Christmas. Government Ministers have also been warned that the Housing Benefit freeze risks pushing renters into homelessness, The disabled have been severely targeted, parti...

Dear Reader, I worked in I.T. for 40 years, but in that time (to 2006) it was all about data processing, the latest developments then being concerned with databases, enterprise business solutions (e.g. SAP) and the (then) upcoming world of the Internet. That now seems to be eons ago.  In just over 12 years since there have been exponential developments in the electronic world to the extent that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now the main topic of conversation in this realm. It is gaining pace very quickly. And one of the products gaining great momentum is Alexa. Here is an interesting (and, be warned, fairly long) article on an assessment of Alexa and her relatives: click here . The more I find out about this development the more I become apprehensive. Sure, AI will be a welcome aid in certain areas of need, but unfortunately, many of us take an unrealistic view about life and tend to develop deep attachments to gadgets. Look how we became attached to mo...