Famous Friend

Looking at my friends on Facebook this morning, Taneti Maamau popped up. He is the President of the Republic of Kiribati -- of which the exclusive economic zone ranks no. 12 in the world. That's larger than China, India, Mexico ... He was a playmate of mine once, long ago ... He is three months younger than me.

Be Nice

One often comes across signs which read: Smile! Be Kind! Be Nice! I spotted this one in a plant pot at Seminary. It stands near the provost's office. OBSERVATION: However, everyone is remarkably nice at Seminary! Maybe all the rest went home ...

Close Encounters

A post on temptresses was popular recently. One might imagine that a minister will be excluded from doubtful women's ambitions. Here are four times that temptresses had a go at me:

1. A woman was hitchhiking near the Church, so I stopped to offer her a lift. She jumped in, and said, "Business or pleasure?" I stopped the car, and said, "Get out." She refused. I said, "Get out," and she got out.

2. A woman approached me after the Sunday service outside the Church. She said with a smile, "Would you like to #@%! me?" I said, "You do know that I am the minister?"

3. A woman told me, "My marriage is dead." I thought that she wanted counselling. I said, "I have no opening this week, only next." She said, "I could rent a room."

4. Walking to Church one Sunday, a woman leaned over a balcony, and said, "Come up and have some fun with me." I said, "Thanks but no thanks." She said: "You're not going to be in Church all day!"

OBSERVATION: There is no shortage of variety or inventiveness in these approaches -- and there were more. There are encounters, too, where one can't be sure: What was that about? 

Last Year in England

1964. Endcliffe Park, Sheffield. This is my father, sister, and me. This was the last year before we left England forever. Thank you England, for the memories. It's been a long time ... We only made a few brief visits to England after this. You may click on the photo to enlarge.

Reconstructing Courses

In the last year, I re-created three university-level courses for Seminary, from the ground up: Homiletics, the Doctrine of God, and Religions and Cults. This was in spite of my having inherited these courses. The Homiletics material I received was well written, well organised, but it was a lecturer's prompts more than it was full lectures. The Doctrine of God was a jumble of files which probably made good sense to the lecturer who used them, but was of limited use to me as an inheritance. And then, I called up the Religions and Cults files, and half of them were blank, and all of them incomplete. OBSERVATION: Three courses amounts to about 1,500 pages -- enough material to fill several books.

Root Cause

I read an article today -- The Polycrisis -- in which Ville Lähde, a Finnish researcher, writes that "there is no root cause to the totality of environmental problems, nor can there be a unified solution". This is something that exercised Holmes Rolston III, the "father of environmentalism", with whom I had a personal correspondence. He considered that there is an "epistemic crisis", which is greater than any of the parts. OBSERVATION: I consider that there definitely is a "root cause". This is the subject of my next major book.

Obligatory Perfection

I wrote out an application for a directorial position -- then I ran it through AI. Now, in my application, I surveyed my strengths and my weaknesses -- mostly my strengths, and a few weaknesses. But AI was not at all happy that I revealed my weaknesses. It was a "significant concern" that I did. I ought to be bullet-proof. OBSERVATION: Well, I suppose it depends on how one looks at weaknesses. They may simply be areas which need focus, or they may be a calamity. It seems to me to be a cruel world -- and a dishonest one -- an abnormal one -- where perfection is obligatory. Who could ever be the perfect director from Day One? 

Compact Leica

I have owned many cameras: Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Olympus, Samsung, Sanyo, Fujifilm, Leica, and more. One particular camera stands out -- with which I took this photo of the Langkloof at sunset. It had a wide angle lens, performed well in low light, had excellent colour rendition ... and was extremely compact. Believe it or not, this nearly 20-year-old Leica, the C-Lux 3, is still available today. OBSERVATION: It has one weakness, which is important to take note of. It suffers sensor burn if pointed into the sun. It is available from Amazon*.

*This is an Amazon affiliate link. I earn a commission, at no cost to the buyer. 

Setting Up a Blog

I am mentoring a student whose life's ambition is to open a rehabilitation centre. Last week, we sat down together to get a web-log (a blog) up and running, which will chart his progress virtually from Day One, with one post a week.  This could one day serve as the foundation for a book. The blog is still very much in the rough at the moment, and will surely evolve in time. His blog is (click here): The Dawn Before the Doors Open.

Stunning Ability

When I finished high school, I had a good general knowledge -- which had been fed to a large extent by world travels. This is not the case with all of my current seminary students. The seminary provost reminds me, however, that they do have a wealth of knowledge -- just not the general knowledge that was my own. OBSERVATION: However, knowing the relative ... call it illiteracy of many of my students, and comparing this with the complexity of their first classes at seminary, their ability has been stunning. They have been managing and passing subjects that they knew nothing about.