Wednesday, May 18, 2016

IT'S A BOMB!

Last week's fiasco in Manchester was the latest episode to display the paranoia that has gripped the western world.
Here's the story. A security firm had been doing an exercise at Old Trafford football ground and,when everybody had packed up and gone home, a dummy bomb had been left behind.
Come match-day, when over 40,000 fans were arriving for the last game of the season a shoe box with knitting needles sticking out was discovered.
I think you can guess the rest of the story: game cancelled, 40,000 people sent home, traffic jams, parameter fence established, fire, police, ambulances and army called in. ALL FOR WHAT?
A shoe box with a few wires hanging out.
A fiasco indeed.
The western world is being nannified and coddled by whole legions of "do-gooders" who think that it is their chief calling in life to protect the public.
But do the public want protecting, or would 40,000 of them prefer to watch soccer, while somebody with brains sends the shoe-box back to the firm who left it there the day before?
O but the TERRORISTS! They are out to kill people. Of course they are, but let's get on with the business of living, which is always a daily balance between risk and reward.
There is wonderful proverb in the Bible:
"There is a lion in the streets: I cannot go out today." 
Where Solomon is sarcastically saying "O really!"
 But we hear "O. The danger!"
The danger, my friends exists largely between people's ears while the TRUE peril lies elsewhere.
Consider the words of Jesus:
"Fear not him who can only kill the body, but fear Him who, having killed the body, has power to cast body and soul into hell." Luke 12:5
But nobody reads God's Book these days, therefore fictitious lions roam the streets while human beings sit at home and shiver behind closed doors.
Jubilate.
Ian


Sunday, May 15, 2016

Prince Harry and his people.

Handsome, red-headed, bearded, a prince of England and named Harry. Turn the clock back 600 years and we have the battle of Agincourt, famously remembered by Shakespeare in his play "King Henry Fifth"
The speech that inspired his men begins thus:
"We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, for he this day that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother"
It was a speech that could have been quoted (and may have been quoted) at the Invictus games held last week in Orlando, Florida, when wounded warriors from across the world joined in competition in a magnificent display of valour that matched their exploits on the battlefield.
Some were without legs, some without feet, some had lost hands or arms or an eye but not one had lost their heart or their passion to compete in the greater game of life.
Well done Prince Harry! We are proud of you.
Concerning the great race of life Jesus pictured the lame and the maimed and the handicapped, when He said:
"If your hand offend you, cut it off. If your eye offend you pluck it out. If your foot offends you amputate it. In this race of life it is better that you win and go to Heaven with pieces missing than go to  Hell in full health." Mark 9:43-50.
Invictus Games in which we all are competitors.
Make sure you arrive at the finish line, my friends.

Jubilate.
Ian