Friday, February 28, 2014

Long Street

Here is a photo of Cape Town's famous-notorious Long Street, here rendered as one might expect one of its patrons to see it (it is known for its drug culture, among other things). It is a very lively street. I almost laid down my life for this photo -- one will see that I took it standing in the middle of the road, and traffic comes from behind. Our home is situated not far from Long Street.

Alan Paton's Prayer

I had never viewed Alan Paton (an author) as a churchman. However, I very much liked this prayer that someone sent me today:
O Lord,
Open my eyes that I may see the needs of others;
Open my ears that I may hear their cries;
Open my heart so that they need not be without succour.
Let me not be afraid to defend the weak because of the anger of the strong,
nor afraid to defend the poor because of the anger of the rich.
Show me where love and hope and faith are needed,
And use me to bring them to those places.
And so open my eyes and my ears
that I may this coming day be able to do some work of peace for Thee.
Amen.
Alan Paton.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Persistence

From 2004-2006, I obtained half an MA at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena -- the mandatory "in residence" section of the degree. Then I went on, from 2007-2009, to obtain an MTh at the South African Theological Seminary. And then, I decided to try for reinstatement at Fuller for the second half of that MA. But I was turned down -- as best I remember -- four times. Some might have given up I think. My academic mentor sent a passionate letter of support to the Seminary. Finally I considered it a great privilege to be reinstated. The conditions were very favourable, too: two-thirds of the second half of the MA were credited to me. OBSERVATION: Persistence often has its reward.

Tough Recommendations

Last year in June I signed an agreement, among other things that I would "withdraw all criminal or civil charges or claims ... with regard to the recent events ..." This may sound simple enough, but notice that it precludes the role of constitutional authorities. With this in mind, in January this year the SA Human Rights Commission invalidated the above. I am, however, still pondering the Commission's recommendations, which are tough. OBSERVATION: As this is a serious post, refer to my Posting Policy in the column on the right. If this post causes discomfort, it will come down, to be reconsidered.

ESP Conjuring Trick (No. 2)

Many years ago, I designed an electronic ESP Conjuring Trick -- my most popular conjuring design. However, it didn't get past the reputable publishers -- because it tingled the fingers with high voltage. That is, the conjurer was able to tell what was inside a box (any of four objects) by touching studs on the box, which tingled the fingers. The design was repeated in less satisfactory ways -- for instance, codes were sent to the conjurer through optic fibre. Yesterday I applied myself to a redesign -- again based on discerning what is in the box through tactile sense. The basic trick (one object in the box, or not) uses just six components -- and it's inscrutable. It's the "original trick", yet without high voltage. Yesterday I submitted the design to EPE Magazine.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Example Of Sin

It is said that sin always does harm to one's neighbour. This definition is disputed (many say that it first hurts God, or that it doesn't always hurt one's neighbour). Here's a small story. I bought my wife a plant for her birthday, which in Hebrew is named an Ester plant. It is uncommon, and I had to search for it. Then we lovingly planted it on the corner of our plot, and nurtured it, to grow there and display bright flowers one day (we hoped). But then someone came along looking for grazing for his cattle. Our fence was in the way. He clipped the fence, and sent his cattle trampling over the Ester plant. Fortunately some of the plant survived. There may, however, be good news yet -- I took some trampled twigs and planted cuttings.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Flood Line

I was at our plot in the country today -- where I had a lively discussion with an old lady. The issue was floods (we are planning to build something small). I told her that the village had recently experienced the worst floods in living memory, and we would build above the flood line. She said nonsense, I'll tell you about living memory and it's a wonder that it's living. OBSERVATION: I based my "living memory" estimate on the size of the trees that were recently uprooted, and the fact that the river radically changed its course (among other things). She seemed to focus on subjective experience. While most of our plot was recently hit by flood water, we plan to build on a part that wasn't -- and to build for an even bigger flood.

Monday, February 24, 2014

Personal Peace

A question I am asked again and again is: "What is the biggest problem in the Church today?" or even: "List the biggest problems in the Church today." One of my professors was Francis Schaeffer: pastor, theologian, and philosopher. In this 52-second video clip, he is talking about cultural changes in the 20th Century. One of the worst, he says, was the desire for "personal peace". I personally would put this near the top of the problems or malaise in the Churches today -- it is a serious problem. The rest of the video is at The Idol of Personal Peace and Affluence.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

Imperilled Position

There is a strange phenomenon in Congregational Churches -- basically simple, but hard to describe. People assume that office-bearers in a Congregational Church have "position". Yet in a Congregational Church, they do not have position. So one has this "source" of un-Congregational thinking -- that office-bearers have position. From this source then follow rumours that office-bearers' position is or has been imperilled. OBSERVATION: Congregationalists feel very strongly about this: there is no position.

Saturday, February 22, 2014

Elusive Éclat

The last few days, I saw one of my articles shooting up the rankings, so I spent some time today maturing it. OBSERVATION: Typically, one can't really know what an article is doing -- although one sees it rising in search results, one receives a surprising invitation to write some more, or a "real somebody" strangely knows one's name ...

Friday, February 21, 2014

Child Counselling

I probably have thousands of counselling sessions behind me. With this in mind, wife E. is now studying child counselling -- and I keep saying to myself, as I look at her notes: "No, not like that." However, child counselling is clearly very different to adult counselling -- I don't think that I could do it. During World War II, they discovered that children in bunkers responded to the madness very differently to adults. That in itself led to a very different approach to counselling children.

Grand-Nephew And Kinship

Here's introducing my first grand-nephew, Lee Ben. I met him for the first time last week. That's a niece holding him. OBSERVATION: "It's not your niece," says wife E. "It's your daughter." We have different terms for relatives in our cultures -- the well-known phenomenon of "kinship terminology". E. straddles the line between Xhosa and Afrikaans as to how one designates relatives. So looking at it the other way round, I would be my niece's tamnci (short for tata mncimnci) or kleinpa -- but oom (uncle) in standard Afrikaans. Ta and pa mean dad.

Post-Traumatic Stress

A more recent rumour that circulated about me in ministry was that, fifteen years ago, I had a breakdown (as if it should matter). That was a tough year, but in reality I didn't skip a beat in ministry, and had a working Sabbatical with nearly fifty public engagements. But here's some truth. In 1990 -- many years before, that is -- I suffered post-traumatic stress, which is serious. Personally, I think that a Church would respond as follows: 1. We missed this? What were we doing? It happens so often in ministry. 2. How can we encourage and strengthen our minister? And 3. God's strength is perfected in weakness. Let's see what God does through this. I was in the midst of a "rampant" ministry in 1990, and I think that, by and large, my congregation responded as I describe. I was only disappointed that my sick leave was transmuted to furlough! -- and, that they missed it. But then, so did I. OBSERVATION: Congregations may also respond the opposite way: nothing to learn here, judge him or her, and weakness is weakness is weakness. A historical example of love under such circumstances is the famous Isaac Watts -- also (less striking) Charles Spurgeon.

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Troubled Yet Not Distressed

This is a four year old re-post. It's about about strength in weakness: "Wife M. has bone marrow cancer, in an advanced stage. She is poorly. I find myself deeply affected by her illness, yet not morose or discouraged. I wrote to an old friend of hers: 'I suppose it is much like climbing a mountain with vision and enthusiasm, but the body is wearied and sore.' Similarly, Paul spoke about being 'troubled on every side, yet not distressed'. M. said this week: 'It's amazing that our household is so peaceful.' She went for a check-up last week at the hospital, and was effectively told that their third attempt to prevent her slide, namely EPO injections, was failing."

Linux Fonts

You may be familiar with the Linux terminal -- which is like the old DOS prompt. If one enters the following in the terminal: apt-get install fonts-cantarell lmodern ttf-aenigma ttf-georgewilliams ttf-bitstream-vera ttf-sjfonts ttf-tuffy tv-fonts ubuntustudio-font-meta one obtains so many free fonts, it is beyond anything one could imagine. Someone commented: "You’re not likely to run out of new fonts any time soon." Some examples appear on the right.

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Meeting The Ambassador

Son M. was invited to meet the German ambassador -- a "cool guy", he says -- along with luminaries such as Gatsha Buthelezi and Helen Zille. That's him dressed the part. The big question on everyone's lips was: "Why did the ambassador invite you?" We heard the answer this morning: "I dunno! I was on his list! There were some others, too."

Financial Flukes

There are always those in the Church who do not have the eye of faith for the Church's finances. No matter what saves the Church in any given year, they will say: Fluke. Fluke. Fluke. My own ministr(ies) have been filled with flukes from beginning to end -- and not just flukes that saved the Church but (depending on the meaning of the word) prospered it.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Review Of Yanofsky

Philosopher Martin Cohen and I had a review published in The Philosopher this week -- a review of Yanofsky's The Outer Limits of Reason. Martin did the lion's share of the work. I prepared the introduction (which one sees here) -- and the very last sentence. My contribution would seem rather like the opening chord of It's Been a Hard Day's Night.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Unnamed Reservoir

This is a reservoir in central Cape Town, just above the Company Gardens, not far from the Houses of Parliament. It has no name -- neither on Google Maps nor on MapStudio maps. I would guess that it was used to supply Cape Town with water in the 1800's. Higher up the slopes of the city is the Molteno Reservoir.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Race And Salvation

I listened to a sermon this morning in which a Calvinist minister correlated racial attitudes to eternal salvation. I obtained a copy of a table that he had in his notes (above). I feel strongly about this, having had close experience with it. I would go so far as to say that if one has not shifted to point 5, one needs to question one's salvation. The pastor implied that point 4 may be Christian, but would fall short of Christian maturity.

Essays in Relational Linguistics

There has been keen interest in my various writings for The Philosopher and its sister publication Philosophical Investigations. Today these were all published in one place, in a small pocket book format (see the column on the right). The book includes two features, six essays, two "snippets", and two provisional essays (under review and hotly disputed, respectively): twelve "writings" in all. The book's "centre of gravity" is a dynamic, relational view of the science of language, in contrast with the familiar, structural view(s). In keeping with the aims of the Philosophical Society of England, the essays are pitched at a general educated public.

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Oranjezicht Bats

An interesting thing about our "cottage" in Oranjezicht (central Cape Town) is that Cape Serotine bats enter our kitchen to roost. It seems hard to believe, because they have to get through the air bricks, which have holes only half an inch in diameter. But such bats weigh less than a teaspoon of sugar. The photo is of a related bat -- not the Cape Serotine. Poor thing.

Oranjezicht City Farm

Photos of me are rare on this blog. I would think that this is the first in a year -- taken by wife E. today on the Oranjezicht City Farm -- or what remains of it. Most of it was built up after the sale of the farm in 1901, after the city had impounded its springs. There is a market on the farm every Saturday morning. You may click on the photo to enlarge.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Need For Speed

I have said that one of the differences between a BA and an MA is the need for speed. As an example, my final term at Fuller Theological Seminary was worth 550 points in total. There were seven prescribed books. I was offered 2 points (0.4%) for the following assignment: "Give a short summary of the major sections of the book (one of the books) in short summary paragraphs, showing how each section develops an aspect of, or gives support for, the main thesis."

Thursday, February 13, 2014

Linguistics And Theology

I now have a fleet of articles published by The Philosopher and its sister publication Philosophical Investigations. However, two of a total of ten still have "provisional" status. This morning I gave these some attention. The most recent article explores the relationship between Linguistics and Theology. OBSERVATION: This is a very important relationship, even if one thinks that it shouldn't be. The fact is, it has a profound influence on Churches everywhere. Not that the average congregant would know it, but it is there. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy has picked this up, and calls it "worrying" (see • language game). My article, incidentally, would be very different if it were written for a theological journal.

Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Berg River Estuary


After a busy day in Cape Town today, here is again a photo. It is a derelict landing on the Berg River estuary, about 160km/100mi north of Cape Town. There is an extraordinary variety of bird life on the estuary. One also sees flocks of birds many kilometres long.

Jaywalking Critter


I took this photo on a tour in my three-wheeler. The road was crawling with these handsome critters. I decided to pick this one up to save it from itself. It didn't even retreat into its shell -- it seemed (as far as a human can tell) annoyed that I had disturbed it. You may click on the photo to enlarge to VGA. The photo was taken near Rocher Pan on the West Coast.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The "Gatekeeper"

I have been involved in very many situations of death. Not seldom, a dying person dictates his or her last will and testament, then signs it before witnesses -- and leaves most of his or her estate to just one or two persons. This is where the Gatekeeper may come in. The Gatekeeper is a person who stands to inherit, say, ten million -- and certainly does not want any family member, friend, adviser, or even minister to bring about a re-write of the will. Usually, access to the dying person will not be denied -- yet the Gatekeeper will hover over every last living moment of the testator or testatrix. OBSERVATION: Think of it, it is a worthwhile investment of time -- if one is that way minded.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Seminary Grades

At Fuller Theological Seminary in LA, I mostly obtained perfect grades (100%). While I felt that good grades were too easily obtained, Fuller made it possible to obtain good grades if one did serious work. It was the guidance and tuition that made this possible (I joked that it was "paint by numbers"). I feel that other seminaries do not so present courses that it is possible to obtain perfect grades -- or even good grades -- because they do not give clear enough guidance and tuition. It is a hit and miss affair as to whether one does well or not. OBSERVATION: By all means make it difficult to obtain good grades -- but not hit and miss.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Testimonies

I attended a large beginning-of-year Church function today. It included two testimonies. OBSERVATION: I have routinely included testimonies in my own ministry, for a few reasons: 1. They testify that God still does miracles today, whether miracles of salvation or everyday miracles, 2. They lead others to Christ, and 3. They unite a Church which includes all the diversity of the world, through shared spiritual experience.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Acquisition Editor

Shortly before my wife died, she told me that she had received offers from several publishers, for her book, her life's work. The same day that she died, I asked her who they were. She could remember only one -- but she remembered it because she had rejected that offer! at least in her mind. I said try to remember. She couldn't. Today I received an e-mail, to my late wife. It was an acquisition editor in Europe, who has been hunting her: "Some time ago I offered you the possibility [of a] printed book."

My Engagement

This one's a repost -- with an update: "It is with joy and thankfulness to God that I announce my engagement to Ester. A celebration was announced in Church today [the 20th of May 2012]. I designed the ring (pictured), and Olga made it. The intention was a simple, unpretentious design -- also to accentuate the jewels, not the gold. The brown is intended to blend with Ester's eyes and skin. You may click on the image to enlarge. OBSERVATION: With regard to the obvious question: When is the big day? I think I can safely say not before Christmas [it was the 5th of January 2013]."
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UPDATE: This beautiful ring was destroyed -- first by the jeweller, who restored it with grey jewels (brown gems require a search). Then, one of the grey jewels was broken in everyday use. Should we find a grey match, or search again for brown? Watch this blog, and you should see the new ring soon -- claws redesigned for heavier use.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Beyond Surprise

A woman came to see me with a woman friend. She wanted to describe her situation from the very beginning. She insisted. Then she arrived at a part where they had "removed my woman's parts". She said: "Here, Reverend, look!" and she jumped up and in an instant removed her clothes, so that she stood naked from the waist down. I said: "I don't need to see what they did to you! Your story is good enough." OBSERVATION: I'm beyond being surprised in ministry.

Smallest 3-Wheeler


I have a special interest in three-wheelers, as I drive one -- and have driven them for fifteen years -- a great tool for urban ministry. Son M. drew my attention to a YouTube Video of Jeremy Clarkson driving the world's smallest ever production three-wheeler, the Peel P50. My favourite scene is the P50 going up on two wheels round a corner, and coming down with a squeak. Recently the Peel P50 went back into production. It costs a cool (in rands) R200 000.

Fatal Dose

I handed a prescription to a chemist yesterday. He looked at it twice. He said: "We have a problem with this, Sir." I said: "You haven't got it." He said: "It's a fatal dose. You'll be dead in a day." OBSERVATION: If the chemist hadn't picked it up, I would have picked it up myself, without doubt. But one wonders how many such mistakes didn't get picked up. It does happen. (The dose I was supposed to take was the smallest).

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Diagnostic Question

There are some famous diagnostic questions, such as those used by Evangelism Explosion: "If you were to die today ..." In Christian counselling, one of the most useful diagnostic questions I have is this: "Does God have anything to do with this?" Alternatively, "What is God doing in this situation?" OBSERVATION: Once one has established the facts of a situation, it is a powerful question, and often reveals a very great deal. It is worth memorising.

Experimental Format

My blog format has been the same for nearly seven years. It is very easy to change it -- which I have been toying with for a while.  This format -- or template -- seems clean and simple. It is called an Awesome Inc. template.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Exchange Student

As a youngster, for half a year I shared a room with an American exchange student. I discovered today that he is Vice Senior President of a fast growing banking group in the USA. OBSERVATION: This could come in very handy for money laundering, inside jobs ... (one learns to think like a South African).

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Kitten

Being a little at a loss as to what to post in my daily blog post, here is a photo of a kitten I encountered on visitation last week. While it may look like a Siamese, I was told that "its father was a travelling man". It was awed by my camera lens, as one sees.

Monday, February 3, 2014

United Church

I am the minister of a United Church -- where "United" has a far broader meaning than it typically does. United is usually in some way qualified, e.g. United Reformed, or United Pentecostal, and so on. My/our present Church is simply ... United. This means uncharted waters, since few ministers or congregations have done this before. OBSERVATION: There is only one other such Church that I know of, or have ever known of -- in a neighbouring village about 80km / 50mi distant.

Wall Of Water

As a boy, I was fascinated by stories of "walls of water" in South Africa. Since then, I have seen the effects of several of them. I photographed this on Saturday -- here in Technicolor. It is the Groot Rivier in my parish in the Karoo. Note the many trees which have been flattened at the sides of the river. You may click on the photo to enlarge.

Sunday, February 2, 2014

Book Review

My electronics book has received several reviews, both public and private. Today a review appeared on Somehowsimple Electronics: "Many of the designs, though simple, are very cleverly thought out. Seemingly uninteresting components are utilised in some unusual ways creating some fun results. I would recommend this book to anyone who has a basic understanding of electronics and is looking to experiment. ... Advanced electronics enthusiasts might find the book less appealing, but might find the unorthodox use of circuitry interesting. I myself enjoy the clever, yet simple use of components ..."

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Roosterbrood

E. and I today bought roosterbrood in a village near Swellendam. The village is too small to appear on the map -- it may be called Buffelsjagrivier (the name of a nearby siding). Roosterbrood (roast bread) is a passion in some cultures. I thought this roosterbrood was very good. Wife E., who roasts it herself, thought it a little yeasty. We tried it for the first time at our Church Fête just over a year ago. It sold like ... hot cakes.

Settled Church

I have ministered in the Karoo, with wife E., for just over six months now. I was glad, on pastoral visitation today, to be told that "your presence has settled the Church". It was a long time without a minister, and was unsettled through this. I met today with a newly elected Council chairman, to talk about the way ahead. It was a good meeting, and we both will be seeking further input from the Church.

Edits: Purpose And Policy

I recently made some edits in the margin of this blog: to the columns About This Blog and Posting Policy. Mostly, this is just to update the columns. There is one significant note, about the freedom of this blog, although this is unlikely to change much at this juncture. See Off Air for some brief perspective.