Musings

I must confess, I woke up this morning feeling grumpy and coming down with another cold, sick and tired of the winter... Then I read this reminder of how blessed I am. Blessed beyond words. Blessings If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who won't survive the week. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 20 million people around the world. If you attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than almost three billion people in the world. If you have food in your refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. If you hold up your head with a smile...

As we go through life, the small moments logged in our memories are creating that mosaic of life experience which we will take with us into eternity. I love small moments. The one I want to share with you this morning is about the barefooted young man in the picture. We were in a banana plantation village not far from Tanuku, Andhra Pradesh to visit some Christian friends. Word of mouth in India is still faster than Wi-Fi, Skype or Twitter as we were swiftly surrounded by a cluster of giggling children. I noticed a young man staring at us from a short distance. He lowered his shy gaze, then plucked up courage and approached us. He spoke to me in an unintelligible language (Telugu) and my Indian friends quickly interpreted: he's asking you for a Bible . I handed him the blue, soft-back Bible someone had pressed into my hands. I will never forget the smile that lit up his face and my heart.

Yesterday, I was contemplating the importance of spiritual health in a world so obsessed by materialism and consumerism. At the risk of sounding Scrutonesque, I concluded that observing beauty is an integral part of spirituality. Our spirits soar within and a light enters our being when our eyes behold an object of resplendent beauty. This might be in the form of a delicate butterfly, a majestic painting or a ray of light on a crisp, winter morning. The older I get, the more I consciously look for beauty. I may be accused of escapism, but I think this is what keeps me sane in the face of realism. The day my spirit is not inspired is a dark day. It appears that the world is trying to fill us with darkness and pessimism - just watch the news for five minutes or go to a modern art gallery where ugliness is presented as art. The majority of our cities are ugly, vulgarity prevails in our songs, films and theatres, nothing is sacred anymore. If this is where we keep our focus, our spirits w...

This morning, I tweeted that I was not religious, which appears to be contradictory to the rest of my tweets and blogs where I regularly mention God and the Bible. It is not my intention to speak against any particular church or denomination, but I just want to express my personal thoughts on religion and being religious. The word ‘religious’ has a negative connotation for me. It conjures up pictures of people who are weighed down by obligations they must fulfil to appease some god or deity. The word itself comes from the Latin ‘religare’ which means ‘to bind fast’ in the sense of ‘place an obligation on’. Christianity has been included in the world religions which I find rather unfortunate as the Christ of Christianity was not religious himself. Religious Christianity abounds in our world today because there will always be a layer of society who love to ‘bind fast’, dictate, command, abuse, intimidate, dominate, exploit and quite simply do exactly the opposite of what Christ himse...

God has given me so much joy this morning as I worship Him, especially through the words of Psalm 30. How David rejoiced in the living God! Likewise it is my privilege to kneel before the Ancient of Days. Verses 2, 11 and 12 are particularly true for me. Joy really is the serious business of heaven, as the great C.S. Lewis stated. Psalm 30 A Psalm. A Song at the dedication of the house of David. 1 I will extol You, O LORD, for You have lifted me up, And have not let my foes rejoice over me. 2 O LORD my God, I cried out to You, And You healed me. 3 O LORD, You brought my soul up from the grave; You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. 4 Sing praise to the LORD, you saints of His, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. 5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning. 6 Now in my prosper...

I love this song because it is so peaceful in the midst of a mad world. It is my experience to have found rest in God. Do not get me wrong, I love life and am delighted with the living, but it seems to me that man very often destroys the tranquility by creating a gaudy bubble of emptiness which bursts so very frequently. The emptiness and transience of life make me desire to build on a lasting foundation. God offers real peace and rest. I start each day by thanking Him for that real, deep serenity which will last forever. Matthew 11 v 28-30

It is always intriguing to observe which concepts and words are difficult to translate from English into a foreign language. As I currently find myself in the Republic of Macedonia, the wrinkled forehead, grimaces and rumblings of linguistic indigestion from deep within prove that it is not always easy to express everything in Macedonian. Sometimes where we have an adjective in English, Macedonian will use a preposition with the gerund/noun e.g. there is no adjective for' chewy', so it is expressed 'for chewing'. 'Creamy' is inadequately translated 'with cream'. Sometimes where we use Latin/Greek derivatives, they just spell out the object with words: e.g for 'funambulist', they say 'dancer on a rope'. However, more often than not, they too will borrow the word e.g 'cacophony' is 'kakofonija', 'ventriloquist' is 'ventrilokist' et al. One is never sure, though, if the Latin derivative is commonly known. Ob...