Mid-Life Crisis?

If one of those warning lights starts blinking red on your car dashboard – what do you do? No, no, you misunderstand me, what DO you do?

Tiddly squat.

Your brain goes into impressive overdrive (note the continued metaphor) and creates several alternative explanations for the flashing light or strategies to deal with it. Number One is to lean slightly to the right to obscure the light – best not to be distracted whilst driving. Number Two is to congratulate the car in its old age, at least something is still working and drive on. Number three is an unconvincing risk assessment – ‘I’ll deal with it if it doesn’t sort itself out by next Thursday’.

Wisdom is silenced in favour of procrastination and procrastination is the infant born from a life organised around certain priorities that have erected a No Entry sign to any uninvited interruptions – including illness, burst water pipes, redundancy, marital problems, or…lack of oil and impending disaster: RAC tow to the nearest garage, overnight hotel, a big dent in bank balance, the wrath of boss, wife/husband, and child who needed a lift to the school concert, and the time-wasting frustration of appealing against the yellow parking ticket affixed to the windscreen.

Following in its wake is a diet of humble pie, three per day for at least a fortnight until some hidden timetable of shame and defeat has done its work and you are helpless with laughter at the ridiculousness of life…and you realise, again, that it’s back to the drawing board. A personal MOT is overdue.

Of course, there are deeper mid-life crises that pay a visit. Ones that threaten to crush its victim beyond repair and others that make long-Covid appear to be a walk in the park.

Back to the question – what DO you do?

Other reactions that do lean towards wisdom rather than outright foolishness include taking a surreptitious peak at self-help articles online or in ‘that section’ in Waterstones. Or, maybe, you will take up that offer from your boss for a well-being introductory day with work-based counselling as a further option.

Somewhere in the back of your brain is not even a memory, more an impression that, in the past, you might have talked things over with a Vicar or Priest. And what does that word ‘spiritual’ really mean anyway? All you know is that the panic attacks at 3am are highly unpleasant, recurring nightmares are increasing in frequency, you’re intimidated by even the thought of doing a presentation at work, and you can barely look at the ones you love in the eye because you fear choking on tears for no apparent reason. And you feel guilty about several recent decisions you’ve taken that fell below the moral standards that you hold others to. Nothing major, but you’ve taken your eye off the ball, ignored your conscience, and taken some shortcuts…your moral compass hasn’t pointed north for some time, so you’ve tidied it away. It’s the flashing warning light all over again. What do you do?

taking a surreptitious peak at self-help articles online or in ‘that section’ in Waterstones

You can fool most of the people most of the time but someone you’ve known, not one of your inner circle of friends, has come up to you recently and asked with a piercing but understanding look: ‘Are you OK, Geoff?’ or ‘Are you OK, Hannah?’ and your hesitation says more than whatever words tumble forth from your lips.

Why am I writing this?

You might surmise that this is autobiographical. Not quite, although I do have this t-shirt. Nor is this article one of those ‘anti-psychobabble’ critiques of counselling – I’m currently about 12 counselling sessions into meeting with a therapist. No. This line of thought was set off by reading about two kings in the bible – namely Hezekiah and Josiah.

Let’s get to it. And, maybe along the way, we might figure out what the word ‘spiritual’ means. Maybe.

King Hezekiah

b. 741BC – ascended to the throne aged 25 in 716BC and died aged 54 in 687BC having reigned in Jerusalem for 29 years.

The account of his political and military exploits is written in 2 Kings chapters 18-20 and 2 Chronicles 29-32. During his reign, Isaiah and Micah prophesied to the Kingdom of Judah.

For us, the important point in Hezekiah’s life came 14 years into his reign when he was 39, a good age for a mid-life crisis.

Despite his great success in pushing through fundamental spiritual reforms, removing idol worship, and returning Israel to the worship of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he has fallen gravely ill. So ill that Isaiah the prophet tells him to put his house in order and prepare to die.

Hezekiah’s response to this mid-life crisis was to pray. As a result of his pleading. God sends Isaiah back to announce that his life would be extended by 15 years. He had reigned for fourteen years, and now his life would be extended by fifteen…you can’t get much more ‘mid’ than that.

Not all mid-life crises have a happy ending; this one included. Initially, you might imagine that Hezekiah, brought so low by his illness, was taken spiritually to ground zero. His own powerlessness was evident to him, and the source of all his help, past, present, and future, lay beyond his human abilities, wealth, or political clout, it lay in God. There was nowhere else to turn. The doctors had failed, his counsellors’ advice could not touch his personal crisis, and even the prophet Isaiah had said ‘time’s up’.

Hezekiah, however, humbled himself, and called out to God. It saved his life and proved to be such a turning point. The biblical account sheds light on Hezekiah’s state of mind:

‘..his heart was lifted up…made for himself treasuries of gold…’ 2 Chron 32 v 25, 27

‘Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart…’ 2 Chron 32v26

Despite this experience of humility, being blessed, and having his life extended by God, in his heart he turned it around so that it became a boast. He made the fatal mistake of showing ‘his’ riches to the Babylonian envoys and failed to acknowledge the Lord as the source of his blessing and riches.

During the latter half of Hezekiah’s reign, his son Manasseh was born who witnessed his father’s spiritual decline and how his pride and love of riches had consumed him. Perhaps it was the effect of the spiritual tide retreating in his father that bred in him a desire to lead Israel differently, away from the Lord, and to commit idolatry? Hezekiah started well but finished poorly, Manasseh started badly but repented and finished well (2 Chron 33 v 1-20)

King Josiah

‘b. 648BC – ascended the throne aged 8 in 640BC and died aged 39 in 609BC having reigned in Jerusalem for 31 years.

The account of his political and military exploits is written in 2 Kings chapters 22-23 and in 2 Chronicles 34-35. During his reign, Zephaniah and Jeremiah prophesied to the Kingdom of Judah.

For us, the mid-reign crisis in Hezekiah’s life came after 18 years into his reign when he was 26 after which he would reign for a further 13 years.

Josiah’s personal history and his spirituality are very different from his great-grandfather, Hezekiah’s, whom he had never met having been born nearly 40 years after Hezekiah died. From the outset, aged 8, his reign was saturated in doing right and reintroducing the worship of the Lord to Israel:

‘In the eighth year of his reign, while he was still young, he began to seek the God of his father David…’ 2 Chron 34 v 3.

He was sixteen years old.

‘In the eighteenth year of his reign…he sent Shaphan to repair the house of the Lord…’ 2Chron 34 v 8

He is now 26. The crisis comes when Hilkiah finds the Book of the Law in the temple and hands it to Shaphan who takes it to the King:

‘And Shaphan read it before the king. When the king heard the words of the Law he tore his clothes’ v19

He is crushed by a sense of fear and grief. He realises, not only that Israel has often disobeyed the Lord who brought them out of Egypt, gave them the Law, and promised to be their God, but that the penalty for disobedience would be the destruction of Jerusalem, the temple, and exile…the wrath of the Lord.

What does he do?

‘Then the king commanded Hilkiah…(and)…Shaphan’ v 21 to enquire of the Lord. They find a prophetess, Huldah who reveals the will of the Lord:

‘Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself…your eyes will not see the calamity I will bring on this place’ v 27,28

In the space of one year following this crisis and the word of the Lord, Josiah instituted a complete overhaul of Israel’s worship and reintroduced Passover v19.

So much good came out of this period and yet, like Hezekiah, it can be argued that the final 13 years of his reign were spent in spiritual decline culminating in disobeying the word of the Lord through Necho the commander of the Egyptian army, entering the battle, and suffering fatal injuries.

His son, Jehoahaz, was 23 when his father died. He was born when Josiah had begun to seek the Lord aged 16 and grew up witnessing his father’s reforming zeal. But his reign was short-lived, lasting all but three months before Necho replaced him with Jehoiakim, his brother.

What can we learn from these two mid-life crisis experiences?

1. Seemingly, crises arise out of the blue and impending disaster looms large

2. We are forced to realise that many things are beyond our strength to put right

3. In our humiliation we may have to face the truth of our complicity in their arrival

4. Hezekiah and Josiah did what a lot of people do…they cried out to God, they prayed

5. In both cases, God responded to their prayers, their prayers and petitions were heard

6. Spiritual turnarounds, however, can be repackaged. True statements such as ‘this happened when I prayed’ shifts the emphasis towards the pray-er rather than the Lord who answered the prayer. That is spiritual pride.

I may be wrong about Josiah’s final 13 years, the second half of his reign. I hope so. As noted previously, the biblical account records the Lord saying:

‘Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself…’

During a crisis, once we’ve poured out our turmoil, complaints, grief, anger, and our pleading to God we must arrive at a place of peace, and exhaustion, and make sure our heart is ‘tender’.

This is exactly what happened to the Prodigal son (Luke 15)

In a foreign land far away from home his moment of crisis arrives. In the mind of the prodigal, it’s financial; he’s run out of money and cannot support his lavish lifestyle. In addition, his fiscal downturn coincides with a country-wide famine. His only option is to become a slave to a pig farmer whose priority, under pressure himself due to the famine, is to feed the pigs, not his slaves.

So, like Hezekiah and Josiah, he cries out. It is a parable, by the way, not history. It’s easy to forget. In the parable he ‘comes to his senses’. Somehow, in the middle of this disorientating period of his life, he manages to clear his head. Without that, we are lost, doomed to become victims, powerless in the face of events that threaten to overwhelm us.

From this point on the road to recovery is sweet.

But, like all good storytellers, Jesus leaves the story unfinished…on a cliff edge. The party’s over, the initial rush of emotion, of lavish forgiveness, has subsided. The servants have gone to bed nursing hangovers and the father who has overeaten for joy, falls asleep. At 3am, we can only imagine where the older son has taken himself, to some sleazy bar downtown, rehearsing his bitterness and wondering where it all went wrong.

The point of the mid-life crisis story is the necessity to cultivate a tender heart, not harbour resentment, selfishness, or pride.

How does the parable continue? The father: did he keep his heart tender? Or did the bitterness of his eldest son infect him and pollute his joy over the one who was lost and is found, was dead and is alive? Did the prodigal maintain his tender heart towards his father – and his brother? And what of the older brother? Now in a mid-life crisis of his own making. Will he in his rage come to his senses and find a way to revisit all the wrong-thinking that had spoiled his relationship with his father over many years?

As a Christian, at this point, it is tempting to say what we should do in a mid-life crisis is turn to God. I do believe this is ultimately what we have to do, face to face with no other alternative than relying solely upon ourselves, but that’s not quite the message of this discussion.

I may be wrong about Josiah’s final 13 years, the second half of his reign. I hope so.

The main message is that maintaining a tender heart is the key to recovery. To forgive others, and to forgive yourself. To thaw whatever is frozen. To melt, to soften anything that has become hard and inflexible. To rediscover what it is to be a child with no power to provide for him or herself and yet trust that love cannot be destroyed. If we can do these things, no one needs to preach the gospel, or advertise God, He has already made Himself known to you.

You now understand how Jesus on the cross was able to say: ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do’.

If it is true what Jesus said about himself, ‘I have the power to lay down my life and to take it up again’, all the more remarkable it is that he did not exercise that power but made himself powerless, submitting himself to the ignominy of a false trial, a near-fatal flogging, the king of kings made to wear of crown of thorns, and then to be crucified outside the city he had wept over.

Suffering injustice and rejection, somehow, he maintained a tender heart: ‘Father forgive them, they know not what they do’. Arriving at this point we understand that God hears the cries of our hearts and that our cries are mingled in with Jesus’ final prayer. We have found that the source of our forgiveness is not out of reach.

And, if so, you know the true meaning of the word spiritual.

And you found out because you didn’t or couldn’t ignore the red flashing warning lights any longer.

The Role of Eye-Witnesses in Historical Fiction

Click the link: Writing historical fiction – the role of eyewitnesses.

ACW Blog: October 7th 2024

Realising that my next 7th of the month MTW post would coincide with the horrifying events of October 7th 2023, I have felt compelled to pay my respects, and to examine the role of eyewitnesses in writing historical fiction.

On October 7th, 2023, the world awoke to the news that Hamas had launched a pre-planned and coordinated attack on several Israeli kibbutzim and the Supernova music festival, murdering over a thousand Israelis and foreign nationals, mostly unarmed citizens, including children, and taking hostage 250 individuals of whom 40 have died while held in captivity and 100 are yet to be returned.

The gruesome eye-witness accounts all report the indiscriminate nature of the attack even if some of the minor details and interpretations seem to be at odds with each other.

Since then the violence has increased multiplying the suffering of Jews and Arabs and all those caught up in the Israel-Gaza war. Our prayers continue.

Those of us attempting to write historical fiction occupy what might be called an interstitial space between accurately documented events or biographies and our creative imagination. Fact and fiction are woven together, and it’s left to the reader to pick at the strands, if they wish to, to differentiate between the two. It’s more immediate with films that take maybe 2-3 hours to enjoy, whereas a typical Hilary Mantel will occupy the reader for days, weeks, or, in my case, months! 

A plug whilst I'm here: the recently published The West in Her Eyes, Janet Hancock (Resolute Books), is an excellent read and a great example of how to put fiction into history - and vice versa.

The distinction between The Crown, Ghandi, Cry Freedom, Apollo 13, and Braveheart or Ben Hur, is that the first four in the list were made when eye-witnesses were still alive. In contrast, Braveheart and Ben Hur were based (however loosely) on historical accounts long after the eyewitnesses had died. 

Where does our moral compass point when it comes to preserving historical accuracy within historical fiction? 

After all, we are storytellers, not journalists, or historians

After all, we are storytellers, not journalists, or historians. Is there a tacit and playful agreement between the reader and the writer that permits, even expects, the writer to go off-piste? (I hope so!) But how far off-piste? Or maybe that is sailing very close to Mark Twain’s maxim of ‘never letting the truth get in the way of a good story’? 

Palestinian writer, Susan Abulhawa, in her beautifully written Mornings in Jenin, and Jewish writer, Assaf Gavron’s wonderful The Hilltop, illustrate the tension between using historical fiction as a tool for propaganda and a genuine, if biased, outpouring of hopes and dreams for a better world.

Libraries, libraries everywhere…and not a book to read

Click the link: Libraries, libraries everywhere, and not a book to read?

ACW blog - September 7th 2024

Library: from Latin librarium – a bookcase, chest for books

Local libraries were places where even the squeak of a shoe on the shiny floor was frowned upon and silence was fiercely enforced by stern ladies with oversized glasses and penetrating stares.

Nevertheless, I spent a fair bit of time in my local library (Whitstable, Kent) during school years rooting around various sections: science, maths, the paranormal, science fiction, and history all come to mind.

It was at University, though, that I successfully distracted myself from my Chemistry degree with fiction - others might have done so with copious amounts of alcohol and other synthetic means – but my forays into Mordor, East of Eden, the Russian Gulag, or Corfu with the Durrels, seemed to be just as intoxicating.

Michael Rosen, former Children’s Laureate, has been voicing his ‘horror’ at the latest round of library closures: ‘

Every time I hear of a library being closed I find it…horrifying… a decimation of our cultural entitlement…many children come from families where they either don’t think to buy books or can’t afford to buy books… we’re taking away free books. At the very moment we’re saying we want everybody to read – so it seems both absurd and horrifying.’

Two stats have made me think:

• 7% children aged 8-18 do not have a book at home. Of those receiving Free School Meals this

increases to 12% and 19% of children aged 5-8 have no book at home

• 97% of children in England have Internet access at home

Is there a case, therefore, for reducing the number of computers in public libraries and returning them to the book and reading sanctuaries of yesteryear?

Libraries have become internet portals and welcoming warm places; more community hubs than reading centres.

But I wonder if there might be a causal link between the declining numbers of library users and this dilution of their primary focus, rather than reduced funding? And as writers shouldn't we be at the sharp end of championing a library-revival?

You may be right in thinking I’ve been captured by some dinosaurian tractor-beam…but I’m searching for solid ground and asking for your thoughts!

In writing this short post, I have hit Google several times. We all use word processors and carry out vast amounts of research online, so I’m not knocking the rise of the Internet, but surely, as writers, we know in our bones, that we have a vital role to play with all present and future readers, stimulating their thirst for imaginative story-telling, and firing their love of literature

Libraries as repositories of cultural treasure?

Michael Rosen has a point.

Paris ’24 10,000m Twenty-Sixth and final installment 0 days to go…

Friday 2nd August

The aim: to try and match Ugandan Joshua Cheptogei’s 10,000m world record, 26:11, but running half the distance!

Opening Blog:

Final Post: in the well-worn tradition of leaving y’all hangin’ first some thank yous to all who have laughed along, cheered, liked and commented on Strava, and doubted (yes you did) and in particular to two pacers, an unnamed pacer on the Severn Bridge Parkrun a month ago and Paul Stuart who worked out a pace for each kilometre and kept me informed as we charged (?) down the Portway yesterday evening.

Some Anno Domini and physical impairments kept me busy: A&E and stitches after falling over and denting my forehead, Achilles heel pain, and various niggles + Covid all delayed progress from 29 minutes for 5K. But, for the past few months, injury free…

The graph shows my favoured early morning Harbourside 5K runs during the past year – the target pace was 5:14 mins per km.

Did I make it? No. I conked out yesterday evening, my final attempt!

This has been such an enjoyable ‘project’ for the past two years. Who knows, I might still get there one day (my PB to date 5:16s/km) but, with the Paris 10,000m Final due to start in 7 hours, I am happy to have removed my trainers, put the very sweaty running vest in the wash, and relaxed today watching the extraordinary athletes bang out 100m well under 10s, 1500m under 3:30, and 10,000m maybe close to 26:11?

Many thanks for reading my 26th and final Paris 2024 blog post.

Over and out.

Paris ’24 10,000m update…4 days to go…Tuesday 29th July

Paris 2024 Olympics is underway, the Flying Cauldron is burning away in the Tuileries Garden, and Team GB has just won their first Gold in the team 3-Day Eventing – congratulations!

And, with four days to go before the 10,000m final, I have four days to try and match Ugandan Joshua Cheptogei’s world record, 26:11, but running half the distance!

Just after sunrise this morning I set off…and was sure I’d run 5K but Strava measured it as 4.91K. Even if I had run 9m further the time was still a tad slower - well, 40+ seconds slower – so there’s work to be done.

How many clichés can I dare to use? One.

It’s down to the wire.

Book Review: Jesus and the Powers, Tom Wright and Michael F. Bird (SPCK)

If the unenforceable pub ban on Sex, Politics, or Religion, as topics of conversation to ensure that tempers do not get too frayed, then clearly Wright and Bird are skating on thin ice in tackling two out of the three volatile subjects.

Tom Wright is well-known for an intellectual and theological approach to New Testament interpretation in its historical setting without somehow losing the common touch. It’s a skill he possesses and has brought once again to this book on Politics and Christianity.

In summary, he and Bird not only argue that for Christians to retreat from politics with either a small p or capital P is as much a terrible mistake as interpreting Christianity and the call of Christ entirely within the bounds of social reform and justice for all. I particularly like this sentence:

‘The gospel cannot be reduced to a this-world project of social betterment. But neither is the gospel an escapist drama for the soul pining for the angelic door of heaven’.

Is the book sufficiently punchy? Yes, ‘I’d say so. It’s not a ‘tome’ at 178 paperback pages. It’s more a collection of well-argued and sometimes entertaining articles stitched together culminating in defence of liberal democracy as the best, or maybe the ‘least worst’, form of government to date, better than the tyrannical reign of totalitarian regimes whether religious like the Taliban, or political like Communist, or fascist dictatorships, or kings and queens.

Is the book timely? Definitely. With Trump versus Harris, our recent electoral swing to Labour, and hotly contested social and political issues like gender fluidity, sexuality, cancel-culture, Israel and Gaza, Russia and Ukraine, China and Taiwan, and the worldwide trades in human trafficking and the millions on the move as refugees (almost exclusively away from totalitarian regimes to liberal democracies), this is a very timely book.

If you’ve never really stepped back as a Christian to consider issues of conscience, and where the limits of obedience to the state should lie, this is a great read. And the limits of fought-for civil liberties such as free speech, freedom of belief, association, and assembly, that we’re in danger of taking for granted, read on!

And, if you are not a Christian but find yourself living in a society shaped, at least historically, by biblical morality and the teaching of Jesus, this is a book for you, if only to consider in a fresh light how we have reached this point in our political evolution in 2024.

This is one of those Stop and Think books.

Is it light-hearted? No, but I did enjoy the authors’ brief foray into the mind and political thinking of JRR Tolkien and the Lord of The Rings and made a mental note to re-watch the DVD set when winter draws in!

This is one of those Stop and Think books

Only one thing irritated me. At first, I thought it was a typo, but as the error is repeated throughout the book, it must have been an editorial decision, an error of judgement maybe, but not a careless mistake. I’m referring to lowercase ‘h’ and ‘s’ when referring to the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. But I’ll leave that for you to judge!

I feel I haven’t done the content of the book justice, but to do so would add too many words. Best to beg, borrow, or buy a copy.

Paris ’24 10,000m update…7 days to go

Friday 26th July 2024

Later today the Opening Ceremony for the Paris 2024 Olympics will explode into life around the Eiffel Tower.

Excitement over the Olympics, held in Paris for the first time since 1924, is crackling away nicely. The previous Paris Games, a century ago, were made famous in 1981 by the film Chariots of Fire in which Eric Liddell, a Scottish Christian, runs for the glory of God and Harold Abrahams, an English Jew, runs to overcome prejudice…and, not to forget, Vangelis’s theme tune.

Et moi?

I’m not running my race for any lofty moral or spiritual goals, but to attempt to match the 10,000m world record time, 26.11, set by Ugandan Joshua Cheptogei in 2020 but over 5,000m by August 2nd, the day of the 10,000m final…seven days from now.

Progress?

Sadly recent attempts to bring my 5K time down have been thwarted. Yesterday I abandoned an attempt…mainly due to misjudging the direction of the wind! Doh! I was running into the wind not with it as planned. Today I woke up feeling decidedly odd with some labyrinthitis and have delayed a steady 5K run for a few hours.

But one doesn’t give up. I’m hoping the Olympian efforts of Team GB and others will inspire me over the final week to push, push, push. No pain no gain, eh?

One doesn’t give up…there are always hurdles to overcome

There are always hurdles to overcome. We’ve woken up to the breaking news that arsonists have targeted train lines in and out of Paris disrupting travel plans for 800,000 passengers on the move. As I write this there are no details, no one has taken responsibility, and the Opening Ceremony as planned will go ahead.

So…in the meantime, it’s Vive La France, much cheering for Team GB, and here’s hoping my earbuds don’t fall out listening to Vangelis whilst urging my two pins to go just a tad faster.

𝓟𝓪𝓻𝓲𝓼 ’24 10,000𝓶 𝓾𝓹𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓮…18 𝓭𝓪𝔂𝓼 𝓽𝓸 𝓰𝓸

I’m feeling the pressure of the deadline…can this 66-year-old athlete (?) run 5000m in the world record time for 10,000m, 26.11, set by Ugandan Joshua Cheptogei in 2020 by August 2nd, 2024, the day of the 10,000m final in the Paris Olympics?

Hmm…this is not me. Hair colour is…inaccurate…and the terrain is hardly the Portway! Nonetheless, I feel there’s something here - a sense of purpose.

Not according to this morning’s efforts.

27:04 this morning for a 5K loop up and down the Portway.

Again, perfect running conditions: cool, very slight breeze, dry. But the legs?

Thoughts include cutting out alcohol, resisting the pull of the toaster, and overcoming the sports-junkie-couch (but not today, there’s some serious tv viewing with Men’s Final Wimbledon and England v Spain footy later).

Also, adding in 1500m runs on the gym treadmill to get legs and lungs used to running faster.

Two and a half weeks to go.

‘They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall run and not grow weary’

Yes, this is my prayer.

Paris ’24 10,000m update

25 days to go…

This morning I set out with the intention to meet my target and break 26:11 for a 5K around Bristol Harbourside.

If you’ve been mad enough to follow this post over the past year or so you’ll know my aim: to run 5000m in the world record time for 10,000m, 26.11, set by Ugandan Joshua Cheptogei in 2020. And to do so by August 2nd 2024, the day of the 10,000m final in the Paris Olympics.

Weather conditions at 7a.m. were perfect: blue sky, no gales, and early enough not to have to dodge commuters walking, biking, or e-scootering to work.

Man, it was tough!

Arriving back at the car I pressed my Fitbit watch to stop, and once recovered, looked at the time 26 mins! However, closer inspection revealed that the time was 26:13 AND the route I took was 4.93K, 70m short of a true 5K.

So…not quite 5K…and not quite fast enough.

Just over three weeks to go. Kummon!

Back. Shower. Tea. Cereal. More tea.

Paris ’24 10,000m update

35 days to go…

If you’ve been mad enough to follow this post over the past year or so you’ll know my aim: to run 5000m in the world record time for 10,000m, 26.11, set by Ugandan Joshua Cheptogei in 2020. And to do so by August 2nd 2024, the day of the 10,000m final in the Paris Olympics.

Not only is this a physical challenge but it also carries a moral/technical dilemma. Look at the Strava time below – 1 second off the target time of 26:11.

I should be cock-a-hoop…but celebrations are tempered by the official Severn Bridge Parkrun time: 27:10.

Why the discrepancy?

1. On Parkruns it takes a few seconds to reach the start line unless you are one of the Jaguars that see a 5K as a sprint…but it doesn’t take a full minute!

2. Strava is ‘generous’ and so shows more favourable times. Bit like weighing yourself on uncalibrated scales that show ½ a stone lighter

3. The official distance needs to be re-checked

I suspect number 2 may be the most significant factor!

Back. Shower. Tea. Toast.

Last comment…I struggled to keep up with the 28’ pacer as much as he struggled to run slow enough to hit 28’. I am indebted to him as a target in his light blue Pacer vest some yards ahead before a late burst from me and a passing Thank you as I lolloped towards the finishing tunnel.

Back. Shower. Tea. Toast.

Paris Olympics 2024 – 43 days to the 10,000m final

My aim is to run the 10,000m world record time, 26.11 set by Ugandan Joshua Cheptogei in 2020 but over 5K by August 2nd, the day of the 10,000m final in the Paris Olympics.

Recent times:
April 19th 27.47
May 18th 27.35
June 15th 27.11

This morning Harbourside 5K…26:30

And I can tell you, that hurt!

Chuffed and puffed…but can I knock off 20 seconds to dip under Joshua Cheptogei’s 10K world record for a 5K by August 2nd the day of the 10,000m final in Paris???

Paris ’24 10,000m update

Bonjour! Signs of progress!

Over the past year, this blog post has not been littered with positive news. If you’ve read a few you’ll know that this 66-year-old athlete (?) periodically introduces you to yet more Anglo-Saxon and Latin-sounding injuries: Morton’s Neuroma, Plantar Fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis, a torn calf-muscle, and anno dominitis.

But to break the fug, the gloom, and the despondency, finally, there’s some sunnier news.

I’m going to give some credit to my osteopath who has altered the way I exercise before running and a good running club friend who has insisted I should stretch after running. If, just prior to a Parkrun, you come across a fella waggling each joint in different planes and lunging as if there’s no tomorrow…it could be me. Plus a warm-up run of a few hundred metres, ideally, before pressing my Fitbit 4 watch to start recording the run.

Two recent runs to report:

6th June, Cumberland Basin

It’s not much after 6 am and we’re off on a bright but chilly morning with a slight northerly breeze along the familiar Harbourside 5K route, past the rowing club, and on up to the cranes turning into the city centre, back to the harbour wall, returning to Hotwells, over the small bridge and turning Fitbit ‘Off’ just before reaching the car.

Result: 27.49 for 5.08km - approximately 27.22 for 5K

My aim is to run the 10,000m world record time, 26.11 set by Ugandan Joshua Cheptogei in 2020 but over 5000m

15th June, Severn Bridge Parkrun

Windscreen wipers working hard on the drive up the M5 and across the Severn Bridge tell their own story, and blustery winds charging up the Severn from the south are ready to make 200+ runners run at a 10-degree angle. The diagonal rain comes and goes. It’s all the way up the impressive motorway bridge and back down. I find it hard to gauge pace, and to decide whether I have enough puff to push on faster for the finish.

Result: 27:11 for 5.00km Fitbit watch - official time, however, was 28:06 - evidently it takes a while to cross the start line!

My aim is to run the 10,000m world record time, 26.11 set by Ugandan Joshua Cheptogei in 2020 but over 5000m by August 2nd, the day of the 10,000m final in the Paris Olympics.

Place your bets!

A weekend diary ramble, London

It’s Saturday, 1st of June. There’s no excuse for the British summer not to take to the stage now. It was so promising at 7.10 standing in the cool air and warm sun on the platform at Sea Mills waiting for the two-carriage train on the first leg to Paddington.

Temple Meads is bustling but quiet. Few are managing speech, preferring to sup at their black Americanos like babies on the teat and consult their mobiles for news that maybe could wait.

I’m no better. I look once, no twice, to check my reserved window seat number on the Paddington train. The London-bound herd has to migrate to Platform 11 and the immense beast arrives, loads its passengers, and is gone, slithering snake-like round the bends exiting the station after the briefest of hesitations.

I have my window seat and a table from which to watch the oncoming clouds and the disappearance of summer.

Fussing with available networks I navigate to a poem on Word written in 2020 when I was feeling rough, maybe with Covid. Reading it again, and fleeting fragments begin to coalesce. It’s called 20kg to highlight how administrative errors by computers are just as racist as humans.

Did I mention clouds? How dull the countryside looks compared to when it’s bathed in the summer sun.

The hubbub of conversation fills the carriage. I hear random words: pig, dry-cleaning, rugby, steak, Treacle (someone’s nickname!)…

I am in a curious bubble cut off from the world cocooned in tiredness – it was a long day yesterday and, with five hours sleep, I feel as if I’m in a tunnel of impenetrable cotton wool.

Reading. Last stop before London. No seats left around the table. I’m waking up, I think. Maybe it’s writing this that’s keeping me conscious. Poor daughter 1, who’s meeting me and will be full of words to pour out, may have to suffer Pa, whose capacity to listen is greatly diminished and needs the nap that he cannot have.

Here’s that poem:

20kg

No words flowing in my veins

No lift of consciousness

To see things small and great

Knowing they are one of the same.

I am unwell.

Corona alarm bells are ringing

Medical professionals pass me

From one number to the next

From one Covid screen to the next

On-line I yield my NI number, my NHS number, my mobile number,

My DOB, my postcode and

Although, when ill, humour is suppressed,

I laugh as the United Kingdom’s database

Cannot identify me!

Have I slid between a crack in the binary?

Could there be an unknown portal between 0 and 1 and 1 and 0?

That algorithm, that App, that whirring computer,

That overheated, CO2 polluting, electricity sapping,

Power-consuming mega, giga, terra server

Cannot identify me!

It required a human to pull strings,

An agent with a pulse

A simple kind woman on a telephone

To put Kasparov ahead of Blue once more

To identify a fellow human, a citizen, a real

Flesh and blood tax-payer, Portsmouth supporter,

Whisky-loving, cigar-smoking, God-arrested, retired Chemistry teacher

And father of five.

Did a whiff of Windrush just slide by?

Of being denied

Though the truth, standing at 38 degrees and not quite well

Had walked upon Jerusalem for six decades and more?

I had smelt the it.

The officials who, unlike the woman, denied rights

Denied existence, denied certain proof, denied humanity

And, hiding behind endless forms

Couldn’t identify…

…Jocelyn John and many others

Jocelyn John with her 20kg bag allowance uprooted and deported

On Christmas Day

Jocelyn John who, unlike me, didn’t find a woman to defeat Goliath

But who fell between the 0s and the 1s

With more documents than needed to build a bridge to Grenada

Was sent away, deported, unidentified, an innocent branded a criminal

On Christmas Day.

It took 10 minutes to find me

The lost, unidentifiable, me

For those moments I was no-one

Applying for a Covid test, feeling unwell

But otherwise fine.

Birth certificate? Check.

But for Jocelyn five years passed,

Three million contested minutes later

An official apology emerged

A repatriation, a restoration, a righting of wrongs,

And JJ’s name is back where it always belonged - in the computer.

Jocelyn John. UK citizen. British.

Bring out the fatted calf.

Put rings on her fingers and

Buy her a new pair of dancing shoes

Let us eat and be merry

For that which was lost has been found.

End of diary entry #1.

Diary entry #2

Monday. On carriage A seat 16 from Paddington heading home. Reserved. Window seat. Facing forwards. Table. Quiet coach. Perfect. A rather peaceful-looking golden-haired dog across the aisle from me. I hope he/she understands the word Quiet.

Two days on tubes, buses, shags pony have taken me to Surbiton, down by the river and the first of numerous flat whites. Thence to The Telegraph open plan offices with sleek black laptops forlornly looking for their operators on a Saturday morning. It’s like a beehive with the queen bee in the easily accessible centre – the Editors’ oval holy of holies.

Across to a street market for an eclectic and international choice of hot food. Jerk chicken consumed; we head back to number one’s flat to zonk out watching a film.

Pre-church flat white on Sunday with number three, then St John’s, or ‘Saint’ as it’s known colloquially. There is an emphasis an immediate ethos - a ‘cool’ and contemporary vibe. Great music, good sermon on the equal need we have as humans for communion with God and community with each other. Can’t knock it. A far far cry from the stiff and formal CofE of my upbringing, ancient stone floors, musty, green-edged hymn books and the all-important black prayer book that only the regulars knew how to navigate…and much silence. Switch that to noisy, rock concert, and emotion and you’ll understand the difference. Could be summed up as the gap between religion and relationship but the truth is that both can easily become a tradition that binds its adherents into a self-perpetuating pattern, empty of meaning. So…ignoring the style…one needs to dig deeper to see if it’s a case of style over substance or substance exhibited in a more exuberant style. For example, the previous Sunday, a lady preached who had been miraculously healed from paralysis, a wheelchair to walking miracle following prayer. If accounts like that don’t stir the blood and justify the feet dancing and hands waving what will!

After church, we move on to lunch at a bar/restaurant offering food from Tel Aviv, Sicily, and Lebanon. Bit later we’re in a lift hurtling into the sky and landing up in a rooftop bar looking down on the Gurkin. 40 floors in just few seconds. St Paul’s looks like a squat little house far below.

…the previous Sunday, a lady preached who had been miraculously healed from paralysis…

Of course, in between all these places are serious and humorous conversations, and ‘impossible to hear’ moments on noisy tubes, people watching, eye-catching buildings, tall and modern, and historically recognisable districts. At one point, for example, we’re near Spitalfields, which figures strongly in the novel I’m trying to write, located in the summer of 1796.

I’ve frequented numerous bathrooms; all clean, with an array of soap dispensers, hand driers, and flushing techniques. One has to be mentally agile these days. I’ve ascended and descended I don’t know how many escalators, stairs, and ramps and passed by the 2012 Olympic stadium, now home to the Hammers, as if it’s normal to do so.

And now, all is done. Just the return journey with the still silent dog to my left and the dull green countryside on a dry, cool, and cloudy day. Saturday and Sunday, by contrast, were very sunny and warm.

You’ll have noticed I have restricted this diary entry mainly to activities and places – an external rather than an internal account. The distinction between private and public, facts and feelings, is interpreted differently by different individuals but the footballers’ refrain ‘what’s said in the dressing room remains in the dressing room’ isn’t a bad adage.

Over and out.

Paris Olympics ‘24 - May 18th

I am very glad to report - enfin - an improvement…aiming for 26:11 by August 2nd, the date of the 10,000m final at the Paris Olympics. 26:11 is the world record for the 10,000m…I’m aiming to equal of break that record…over half the distance 😊

Paris Olympics ’24 – 17th May 2024

It’s now 90 days to go before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris, and an update is called for.

The 10K Final is scheduled for Friday, August 2nd 2024 at 9.20pm

My 5K aim is to run at or under 26 mins11 seconds. This is the time Ugandan Joshua Cheptegei ran for the 10K world record.

26 mins 11s ?

Tomorrow I will attempt the Chepstow Severn Bridge Parkrun to close the gap between my Parkrun pb this year of over 28 minutes and 26:11.

Until tomorrow’s result…au revoir mes amis

Paris ’24 – 17th April 2024

With just 100 days to go before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris, it must be time for another blog post.

The 10K Final is scheduled for Friday, August 2nd 2024 at 9.20pm

Why mention this?

As I am running 5Ks at just over the 10K qualifying time of 27:28 I have a new aim…to run a 10K on August 2nd, the same day as those gazelles of the athletic world, go home, shower and then watch to see the elite storm home in less than 63 seconds per 400m laps.

if one aims at nothing, one is sure to succeed

Also, the 10K world record stands at 26:11 care of Uganda’s Joshua Cheptegei…that shall now be my aim for running Parkrun 5Ks. Not easy, my pb is about a minute slower than Joshua Cheptegei’s 10K record!

But if one aims at nothing, one is sure to succeed.

Today’s 5K on Bristol Downs, a gentle jog after cramp 6:17 per km, just over 30 mins for 5K, so there’s a way to go.

But with my new Brooke’s trainers and a following wind…who knows?

My aim - 26:11 for 5K

Paris ’24 – 23rd November 2023

Announcing a probable withdrawal from Paris ’24 Olympics.

The qualifying time for the 10K remains at 27:28.

The option to switch genders and aim for the 31:25 mark for women is…erm…a step toooo far.

My knee and hip injuries have seemingly settled down but surgery looms for the toe in the ‘run up’ to Paris and so what was impossible has now become medically impossible.

One’s aim now has to be adjusted, naturally, to the next Olympics - Los Angeles ‘28.

That stirs the half-American in me. Paris of course has a certain je ne sais quoi compared with the madness of west coast America and socially liberal Cal-i-forn-i-a. Genetically I may be closer to LA than Paris, but culturally? Nope.

Yesterday’s very gentle dawn return to 5K jogging around the Harbourside 5K took 33 minutes so the challenge is simple – I need to somehow induce my legs to twitch backwards and forwards at twice the rate, actually a tad more rapidly than twice as fast.

 Here goes.

Israel, Hamas, and the BBC

I feel the need to say something. Not to speak runs the risk of allowing evil to take root.

I share these reflections from the depths of shock and grief over Hamas’s murderous campaign on Saturday 7th October 2023 which has left 1000+ Israeli citizens dead and many others injured and traumatised.

And also anticipating the inevitable Israeli response taking its toll not just on Hamas and its supporters but on Gaza Strip civilians who do not support Hamas and are subject to their rule.

One weeps with those who weep.

There is something quite indefensible, despicable, and distinctly cowardly in using military firepower against defenceless men, women, children, babies, and animals. The massacres at the Supernova Music festival in which 250+ young partygoers were slaughtered, and at Kfar Azar, leaving 100+ grandparents, parents, children, babies, dead, some burned in their homes, and some children and babies beheaded, were barbaric and sickening.

War is evil enough, but even in the depths of war, there are limits. Hamas and its supporters have ignored those limits and revelled in the ‘triumph’ of the attacks, celebrating publicly – even on the streets of London - the massacres, jubilant at the flow of Jewish blood, and the capture and abduction of Israeli citizens. This is unspeakably evil and shameful.

Hamas’s actions, like Al-Qaida’s 9-11 attack, are despicable and cannot be justified, whatever the grievances held, legitimate or not. To convert grievance into hatred and hatred into targeting rockets and bullets against defenceless civilians is beneath contempt.

One weeps with those who weep

If I held any hope that Hamas could rule the Gaza Strip for the sake of its citizens and interact with Israel to forge some kind of peaceful co-existence, this has been shattered and irrevocably torn to shreds. The world now waits to see whether the Israeli military response will succeed in uprooting Hamas, which appears to be the aim.

But, in terms of respect, I feel I must address an institution far closer to home. The BBC. Our BBC.

I am ashamed now to pay the Licence fee.

Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation which has carried out a shocking massacre of Israeli life on Israeli soil and the BBC continues to use the word ‘militant’ to describe Hamas instead of ‘terrorist’. The distinction is important. This is not a time to downplay, contextualise, politicise, or dilute the horror of the events of last Saturday. This was a pre-determined, pre-planned, pre-rehearsed attack as part of the overall strategy of the terrorist organisation called Hamas to execute vile terrorism on Israeli soil against unarmed civilians, Jews.

What to pray? What to hope for? I sit in silence before God

I call upon BBC journalists to refuse to cooperate with their editorial chiefs and use the word terrorist where it is the only appropriate and accurate word to describe premeditated military attacks on defenceless citizens.

And that, surely, includes the attack and twin massacres carried out by Hamas on Saturday 7th October in Israel.

What to pray? What to hope for? I sit in silence before God. He hears our inability to find words. The mute longing for grief and suffering not to be prolonged. For human hearts in Gaza, in Israel, to find courage, to grow beyond any ideologies of hatred, to limit the justification of retribution as a way of defining life and the future. And, in time, to displace war in favour of mercy and a deep desire to live in peace with one's neighbours.

Halfway to Cambridge

For the first weekend of September, I attended the British Christian Writer’s Conference at Ridley Hall in Cambridge, since when I’ve been hard at work editing a historical fiction I’m writing that just may see the light of day later in the year or, more realistically, in 2024.

As a member of the Association of Christian Writers (ACW) I also contribute to the ‘morethanwriters’ blog each month.

If you’d like to read that blog titled ‘Halfway to Cambridge’ please follow the link below, where you’ll find that ‘Halfway to Cambridge’ is a phrase that came to me spontaneously in a dusty layby whilst texting a friend who’d passed an important exam.

Since then ‘Halfway to Cambridge’ seems to have taken on a life of its own and, really, is a description of a state of mind.

To discover whether you are ‘Halfway to Cambridge’ please, be my guest, and follow the link!

Halfway to Cambridge (morethanwriters.blogspot.com)

My website/blog www.unlessaseed.com has had an MOT and service and is ready to hit the road once again with some improvements

Hello!

My website/blog www.unlessaseed.com has had an MOT and service and is ready to hit the road once again with some improvements:

1. Subscribing enables you – free of charge of course - to receive regular updates via your email as articles and blogs are posted

2. Navigating from page to page, blog to blog far quicker and slicker

3. Pages: (i) What is a Christian? (ii) Book/Film/Podcast Reviews, (iii) Poetry, and (iv) Everything Else continue as before but with more focus on the ‘unless a seed’ reference (John 12v24) as a message for the here and now.

4. Writing – currently editing/re-writing an historical novel set in 1799, a children’s book set in a land further than far away…and an accumulation of poems.

5. Links – links to other sites that have caught my eye such as daughter Rachel Stevens’ podcast Believingin interviewing a wide range of friends, colleagues, family members about their beliefs…a cocktail of Christians, Muslims, Atheists…with Rachel’s twist of Christian lemon.

But mostly, I hope that you will at least test-drive the blog, enjoy the content, subscribe, and leave comments!

A quick note about Facebook. Links to www.unlessaseed.com blog posts, poems, and so on, will mainly be made, not on my personal FB account, but on my Christian Writer page: Facebook

And lastly…apologies if you’ve received this message from various sources (email/FB/blog) and are feeling nagged. If so, rather than grumble, please make contact and there’s a pint, coffee and cake, or a glass of wine waiting for you as an apology.

Hope to find you at some point here on www.unlessaseed.com

John