3 Million Views

My blog has just passed three million views. Recently, however, some analysis showed that many of these views are non-human. They are bots. For what it is worth, most of my views in the last week have come from the USA, India, and Bangladesh.

Ransom for a Phone

Wife E took a minibus taxi to work (usually she drives to work). Her phone vanished. She was searching her mind all day as to what she might have done with it. I said, It was a skelm, in the taxi! They stole it! Apparently the skelm sold the phone -- an iPhone 12 -- for R5,000. The buyer offered it to me for R5,000. I easily bargained him down to R2,500. E's employer said, bargain him down to R500! Unfortunately, I do not have amazing bargaining powers. I bargained him down to R2,000. We arranged a rendezvous -- Woodbridge Island lighthouse -- I paid him the money -- he was wearing dark glasses -- and I got the phone. OBSERVATION: I asked him,Why did you buy a blocked phone? He said, The seller said that the batteries were flat! I checked the batteries. They were 33% charged. But E was over the moon to have her phone back.

Driving Us to the Brink

It is no wonder that people live with depression, burnout, sub-threshold PTSD, suicidal ideation ... This week I received a bill, dated 22 July. Yet whoever was responsible for sending it to me, they sent it only on 15 September -- 55 days late. Then my financial adviser informed me there was a "clamp" on my finances, and I could pay no bills until 5 October. The amount of "digital homework" needed to get me out of this jam was extreme. I watched thousands and thousands of key-presses tap-tap-tapping before me as I sought to address it. OBSERVATION: This kind of demand, which is not untypical of our civilisation, is driving us all to the brink. It happens day after day after day.

Application Letter

I reported recently that I was mentoring a young man. Today, he was accepted by the prestigious Stellenbosch University Kweekskool. Might I have had anything to do with that? Yes. I helped him re-write his application letter -- to weave Stellenbosch's programme focus into his application. OBSERVATION: It was a tough decision: to go the simple path of faith (Seminary) or the complex path of reason (Stellenbosch). But Stellenbosch looks like a good fit for his goals. It was not a foregone conclusion that he would be accepted.

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.