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!

Juggling with water

In a dream as a child,
Creeping downstairs
In the dark, I sat
Composed, adjusting the
Ragged piano stool
And played Rachmaninov’s
2nd piano concerto in C minor
Faultlessly
Each finger and note
Plunging into an infinite pool
Of untrammelled light

It was so vivid
A copy of a reality
Evading this conscious realm
Early in the morning I followed
My dream to the same stool
But my fingers turned to butter
And the notes and chords
Evaporated never to return
Like a juggler whose sticks
Had turned to water
I sighed

And now? Years piled upon years?
Here I am. And there you are.
Do we prefer the dream world
Of realised hopes, like miracles
Grace-gifts from elsewhere?
Or,
Do we reconcile ourselves
To the world of cuts and bruises
Of hoped-for solidity
Slipping through our fingers
Like water into sand?

Jazz-jamming bum notes flow on,
Unashamed stepping stones

On the subject of water,
I stumbled across
An unlooked-for treasure
Tucked away in an ancient psalm
You keep my tears in a bottle
You have recorded each one
In Your book
Now? Now, with eyes closed
Jazz-jamming bum notes flow on,
Unashamed stepping stones
Sounding like spring rain

Polished Arrows, Jenny Sanders

Polished Arrows is a non-fiction departure from Jenny Sanders’ recent Children’s books Charlie Peach and The Magnificent Moustache and other stories.

Polished Arrows is more than an extended bible study on discipleship, or a manual on how to grow towards spiritual maturity, it is a comprehensive look at various aspects of real life as a believer – for example, past hurts and forgiveness, dealing with regret, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And, although the author is not self-indulgent in using personal illustrations, the theory is clearly anchored in her own experience.

I found the historical Arrowsmith technology – selection of the wood, smoothing the shaft, and dealing with knots for example fascinating. It serves as a clear and powerful metaphor of God’s purposes for us – to be fashioned as arrows and fired into the world - throughout each of the twelve chapters

At the end of each chapter is a study section where Jenny has listed a few questions to allow for group discussion or individual reflection.

It serves as a clear and powerful metaphor of God’s purposes for us – to be fashioned as arrows and fired into the world

I particularly enjoyed Chapter 4 Abrasive Grace, using Elijah as an example, and Chapter 6 Knotty Issues illustrated via Naaman’s miraculous healing. I am certain that anyone reading Polished Arrows will find several chapters that stand out as personally relevant. One of the strengths of Polished Arrows is that each chapter can be read as a ‘stand-alone’ study but also as part of the overall process of being formed into a polished arrow and fired into the world.

Polished Arrows is thoroughly biblical, quoting extensively from the Old and New Testaments but the language is conversational in style rather than theological and so will appeal to those who love the word of God but are put off by unnecessary use of technical jargon.

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.

Book Review: Mornings in Jenin, Susan Abulhawa

Jenin, a Palestinian city on the West Bank is the backdrop to this searing and beautifully written fiction; half-novel half-history.

Susan Abulhawa’s book will transport you into the rugged geography of Israel and Palestine and the heart of the struggle between two sides locked into a seemingly endless conflict. Mornings in Jenin examines that conflict from the perspective of a Palestinian writer.

Of course, I have read Mornings in Jenin in the aftermath of Hamas’s appalling and murderous spree on October 7th 2023. I can offer no certainty about the author’s viewpoint on the moral equivalence of Hamas’s pre-planned grotesque action and the devastating military response by Israel in Gaza.

The story follows the fortunes of the Abulheja family, Palestinians…

But to comment on the present war in Gaza would deflect us away from reviewing Mornings in Jenin.

If you are in search of an author who can turn suffering and a deeply ingrained sense of injustice of a whole people, families, and individuals into beautifully written paragraphs and sentences that capture desperation, humiliation, fear, hope, and defiance without ruining love and tenderness and generosity, you should read Susan Abulhawa’s Mornings in Jenin.

The story follows the fortunes of the Abulheja family, Palestinians, forced from their homes in Ein Hod in 1948 by Israeli soldiers and moved en masse to Jenin, a refugee camp on the West Bank. The final chapter is set in Jenin in 2002 in the aftermath of the Israeli military strike and battle that lasted 12 days and resulted in the destruction of property and life on both sides.

I could quote many paragraphs that lift the reader beyond vivid fictional description and well-crafted prose into the realms of poetry and the spirit.

Bear in mind I am half-American by birth, so I take this quote on the chin:

‘Amal, I believe that most Americans do not love as we do. It is not for any inherent deficiency or superiority in them. They live in the safe, shallow parts that rarely push human emotions into the depths where we dwell…the kind (of love) that dives naked towards infinity’s reach. I think it is where God lives.’

or,

‘David cried silently. He stood over his sister’s body…though he made no sound, the force of his grief was strong, hovering over the graves like rain that cannot fall.’

Perhaps the greatest compliment that I can muster for Mornings in Jenin is that, just as it is virtually impossible not to believe that Jesus’ parable of the prodigal portrays real historical individuals, Susan Abulhawa has clothed her fictional characters with such flesh and blood, emotions and conviction, and aging flesh that they come alive as you read the book. You can almost touch them, taste their food, and drink their sufferings.

‘David cried silently. He stood over his sister’s body…though he made no sound, the force of his grief was strong, hovering over the graves like rain that cannot fall.’

Yes, I can, and would, argue the toss about her historical analysis of the opposing Israeli/Palestinian causes but if, like me, you see the hand of God in the remarkable return of the Jews to the land of Israel, may I recommend you read this book; maybe it will cause you to ‘dive naked towards infinity’s reach…where God lives’.

Jumping from the sea wall

I think I was four
When my tongue wrapped itself
Round a new word:
Subtract
It may, of course, have been
Take away, or minus
But I added it to my arsenal
Of ideas of having less

At four, I knew
I had less height, less strength
Less girth, less stamina
Than the grown-ups
The urge to close the gap
A burning fire: how oddly
We strive for the things
That will overtake us

But even at four, or five, or six
Our secret comparisons
Invisible and inward,
Bristle with life:
Elizabeth is beautiful
Somehow Carol is not
Love, added and subtracted
Rushes in like the tide, and away

My friend, arms raised, yelling
Jumped off the sea wall
Into the waves…I held back
Washington never lied…but I?
Whoever dealt the cards
Gave some to all, not all to one
What we lack others have
That’s the arithmetic

Freely you have received
Freely give
Oh! this somersaulting universe
Under a tutelage of grace!
Having less is a baptism,
A plunging into a vast ocean
I lack courage…but only in me
It comes as a gift…to share

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

Not Just Mud - a trilogy

Not just mud i

It all started with pulling my

Fingers free from the mud

Abandoned at low-tide

Dark, tacky, sweet-smelling

Mud to sink toes and feet in

But at my age then,

I wanted to be a crab

So, immersing toes and fingers

Side-slipping, I chased the

Outgoing tide until…

…it was the sight of a

Real, live, salty red crab

That stopped me:

Curiosity pulled at my fingers

Until, with a thwook,

Out of the mud they came

I took hold of the hard edges

Of the crab’s crusty shell

And let its flailing legs

Make patterns in the mud-ripples

Before baptising it

In a pool and letting it

Get clean away, then it was back

To plunging my fingers in then out

I wondered even then:

What could I make with mud?

Mud: the impotent left-overs

The detritus of decay

Washed here and there

By forces too strong to resist

Wind, tidal surges, estuary madness

Mud: weak, wet, and worthless

But my fingers went to work

First a handful, squeezed

Until the sea stopped draining free

I looked at the grey-brown sphere

Formed between my palms until

It was a scoop of ice cream…

Next? Something like a cone

Squeezed and rolled, emerged

It all ended with Mother

Picking me up

Mud still in my hands

And between my toes until

I was bath-baptised and got

Clean away…to bed, dreaming

Of mud-men and mud-women

Majestic and mighty

Not just mud ii

The years passed by

And mud had turned to clay

And clay had turned to stone

And the stone had turned

Into sculptures

Of tall men and tall women

Striding across long grass

Leaving behind an evolution

If not an evolution

Then a metamorphosis

My gnarly fingers

And swollen joints testifying

Of a lifetime sculpting

Making a fading dream

Become impervious

A vision taking on solid forms

Of a people, a stone race

Of magnificence rising up

From all that’s unseen

Beneath the soles

Of our shoes. Sixty years it took

Before halted again,

Not by a crab but

At my god-likeness

Not just mud iii

My brother was a doctor

My sister a warrior

In low moments I thought

I had wasted my life-clock

Felt like grey-brown mud

Squeezed dry by the world

Just a scoop of nothing much

A sculptor barely scraping by

It was not a voice I heard

But something

Not an angelic visitation

But each cell of my body

Began to exult - I saw

The loving hand of God

Reaching down into the poor

And broken mud-people we are

And yielding, if we will, to the

Divine finger-moulding-pressing

We rise, like wet clay on a wheel

Into the mud-men, and

The mud-women

Of a four-year-old’s dream

The weak, wet, and worthless

Now tall, mighty, and magnificent

Nazareth, Israel

2022 census
Pop: 78,000
The inhabitants are predominantly Arab citizens of Israel,
of whom 69% are Muslim Arabs and 31% Christian Arabs

Shall I explore Nazareth?
Travel there will bleed £300
From my bank account
But barely nine hours later
And I’d be eating falafels
At Bayat’s, outside, soaking
In the late afternoon sun

But like the two disciples
On the road to Emmaus,
Nine hours elapsing
After the resurrection,
Imagine, if you will,
Sitting across from me, Jesus,
Asking for more hummus

Our meal washed down with
Cups of Baladi, orangey tea
Or a glass of Shafaya
Blood red wine from Galilee
And he asks me:
Can you make wine
Without crushing the grapes?

My eyes meet his
There’s a cool breeze
To alleviate the afternoon heat
But I look at this man
If that is what he is
He stands up, smiles
A tear in his eye, and is gone

I look around with his eyes
My ears growing accustomed
To the poetic cadence
Of Arabic and Hebrew tongues
I wonder if he, so unwelcome
Once, at the synagogue,
Was sitting easily or uneasily?

Are they ready for you in Nazareth?
It seemed his one question
Spawned more questions in me
Rather than answering his with a No.
Are they ready for the wine
Or would they crush you once more?

Is that why you left?
But his smile more than
The tear has not left me
He sat down at my table
And, later when I went to pay
The restaurant owner said
‘Bill paid. By your friend’.
Slowly, I closed my wallet

And left, knowing he is ready
Ready to welcome those
Who are unwelcome
Displaced Palestinians
Ejected from house and home
Post-holocaust Jews
Diasporans in their own land

Can my heart be so hard
To leave him outside myself
Standing in the Bristol rain?
No. Now I understand
It took a crushing, not just
A bill paid by a stranger
To savour the new wine.

______________________________________________________

Luke 4

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown”.

All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They drove him out, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Words on hold

It’s revealing what gets stuck
Year on year
In the sluice gate

All that mudded water
Redirected, ruining houses
Built on flood plains

Whilst broken chairs
Like erupted bones
Splinter the angry stream

Or logs and small trees,
Held up, banging themselves
Hard against the grill

No space left
For the flow of words
A heart clogged

With jagged splinters
The grist, you’d think
But not today

Today, whatever
Grain is being milled
Out of sight and sound

Is a quiet day
For picking out the debris
One piece at a time

9pm: My triste:

The back garden slatted bench
Two ice cubes and a
Cut glass swill of American whiskey
In my cold right-hand
And in my other
A warming medium-sized
Henri Winterman’s

Welcome

It’s quiet and best taken in
With eyes closed
A crow with a single squark
Has made his journey from the moon
Hiding behind the wood
And the river of cars
Add to the whisper of the trees

I wonder if hidden Russian or Ukrainian
Or Israeli or Hamas fighters
Are listening also to chattering leaves
It’s too early for cats to squeal
Radiators and fires
In my neighbours’ houses
Prove irresistible

It’s too early also for constellations
Just three pin-point stars
Watching over the Earth
All the skylarks, blackbirds, sparrows
Are down; it’s the time
For bats to break the speed limit
Of the encroaching night

Welcome

I exhale a cloud of sweet-smelling
Incense my conversational
Prayers ascending
Carried into the trees
By the Spirit
To heaven all around us
So close

Pause

Warmed internally as I am
By the golden whiskey
My tongue on fire
I feel the God of the bible is close
God who makes all wars to cease
And I wonder how?
Maybe I should only wonder when?

These sensory minutes
Slowed by thoughts and longings
Lead me to feel
Yes, the hard bench, but far more:
Peace, tangible goodness
Pressing down into us all
If we would stop and look up

Discerning the present call of God

Prophets in the Old Testament had a dual role.

Firstly, they call the people back to obedience to the Law of Moses (Gal3v17) and faith in the Old Covenant promises given to Abraham (Gen 12v1-3).

Secondly, they announced the word of God to their generation, or individuals, and this often included divinely revealed knowledge of the future so that they could move the people into a greater revelation of God’s purposes, in particular, pointing towards the time when God would inaugurate a New Covenant era through the sufferings of the Messiah and the pouring out of the Spirit.

prophets continue to call the people back to the gospel

We are now living in that New Covenant era and prophets continue to call the people back to the gospel, back to faith in the promises of God contained in the New Covenant (e.g. Jer 31 v 31-34 /Hebrews 10v16 and Ez 11v19/36v26-27) and to call the people forward into the purposes of God.

This article aims to follow on in this vein.

…and to call the people forward into the purposes of God

In England, the battle to establish true Christianity free from State control and interference is described very well in E.H. Broadbent’s book The Pilgrim Church.

John Wesley and George Whitfield were such prophets, calling the people back to the gospel and forward in the purposes of God, and playing their role, along with many other preachers, in establishing many churches.

It is a gross simplification to look back at John Wesley and George Whitfield as the sole pioneers of a recovery of genuine Christianity in England, but something was stirring as a small group of students began to meet at Oxford University in 1729. Wesley and Whitfield rediscovered that salvation is by grace – a free gift – and through faith in what Christ has done on the cross rather than attempting to produce a Christlike life through good works and religious observance.

Preaching salvation by faith, and the need to be born again, caused an uproar and many churches closed their doors to Wesley and Whitfield and others preaching the same message…hence the thousands that came to hear them preach in the open air.

As their numbers grew, ‘evangelical Christianity’ found greater degrees of toleration in England through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Many well-known denominations are now either completely ‘evangelical’ in their theology or have significant proportions of their members who sail under that banner: Methodists, Baptists, Brethren, Pentecostals, and many Presbyterian churches to name a few.

Prophets such as Wesley, Whitfield, Seymour, and the pioneers of the Charismatic Renewal churches in our day fulfilled their mission to call the people back to the New Covenant and call the people forward in the purposes of God.

Then, in 1906, William J Seymour, a one-eyed black preacher in Los Angeles started preaching that, subsequent to receiving the gift of salvation, there is a baptism in the Spirit and that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are part and parcel of the New Covenant and should be operating in the church today. Meetings in Azusa Street became almost a re-run of Acts 2 at Pentecost. As a result, Seymour and others were regularly banned from preaching in many evangelical churches and were forced to form their own denomination – called the Pentecostal church. From that starting point, the movement of the Holy Spirit began to spawn revivals such as the Welsh revival of 1904 and affect historic denominations through Fountain Trust Meetings in England in the 1960s.

As a result, what became known as ‘Charismatic Renewal’ was born with thousands of believers in hundreds of denominational churches experiencing the baptism of the Spirit and receiving gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, and words of knowledge. As a result, when those preaching the message of Charismatic Renewal were rejected, as many were, new churches were formed such as New Frontiers, Salt and Light, Kingdom Faith, Vineyard and so on. Some churches in the more historic denominations also welcomed the renewal and restoration of the gifts of the Spirit.

The above two major rediscoveries had always been contained in the New Covenant as prophesied by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel and embodied in Jesus. It was Jesus who preached that we must be born again by the Spirit of God and commanded the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the baptism of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Prophets such as Wesley, Whitfield, Seymour, and the pioneers of the Charismatic Renewal churches in our day fulfilled their mission to call the people back to the New Covenant and call the people forward in the purposes of God.

What about now? Where are we?

The following three short articles will look at:

1. The three feasts of Israel – Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles

2. Who died on the cross?

3. Rachel dying in childbirth

Firstly, Tabernacles.

Jews celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles by gathering under ‘booths’ to break bread and drink wine, to remember their journey through the wilderness living in tents (tabernacles). These days it will often be small family groups that meet under a roof made from the overlapping branches of four types of palm trees. There are gaps between the branches to let the light in…open to the heavens. The feast is prophetic – pointing to the New Testament era i.e. not only for the ‘sojourning’ aspect of our time here on Earth before Resurrection and glory – but of the reality of the New Covenant in the present age. There is a ‘here and now’ dimension that has not previously been seen or taught as integral to the new covenant in the same way that Passover and Pentecost have been rediscovered.

As with Passover and Pentecost, the first fulfilment of Tabernacles is located in Jesus. He was the Lamb of God (Passover) and the Spirit was upon Him (Pentecost). But in John’s gospel we read ‘the Word became flesh and tabernacled (Tabernacles)among us and we beheld His glory’ John 1 v 14.

The church, in Christ, is therefore to be an expression of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.

When the church gathers, the body of Christ, we teach that Christ as the Passover Lamb has dealt with our sins and set us free, and that Jesus will baptise us with the Spirit as at Pentecost, and the Spirit manifests His presence in gifts and ministries, but we also gather together under a roof that lets the light and the glory in; Tabernacles is fulfilled in the church. Denominational barriers boundaries and cannot stand in the glory and the light as the body of Christ comes together and lives and moves in His light and glory, just as Jesus lived.

Secondly, moving on from Romans 1-5 churches

Romans 1-5 is a wonderful series of logical arguments that describe the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ on the cross, i.e. Christ died in my place, He died for me, taking the punishment I deserved and so securing salvation by grace not by my works, through faith. Once I ‘see’ or believe that Christ took my sins on the cross, I can believe in God’s love for me and His forgiveness, reconciliation, justification, salvation that is all offered to all as a free gift to be received. We ‘repent’ of trying to live the Christian life under our own government and we receive the gifts of salvation, righteousness and eternal life and are restored to a relationship with God our Heavenly Father. This is, of course, wonderful ‘good news’ (the meaning of the word ‘gospel’) and many lives have been transformed simply by that revelation and encounter.

Romans 5 starts with ‘Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ and ends with ‘so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord’. There is only one reference to the Holy Spirit, He is introduced more fully in Romans 8.

And so, evangelical churches preach Romans 1-5 with faith and charismatic churches go further and incorporate the teaching in Romans 8 and elsewhere on the present ministry of the Holy Spirit as a consequence of receiving the baptism in the Spirit.

But in Romans 6 Paul poses a question to which many evangelical and charismatic believers would have to answer with a ‘No’.

‘Do you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…now if we died with Him, we shall also live with Him’

Similarly in Galatians 2 v 20

‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me; the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me’

Or Colossians 3 v 3

‘For you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God…’

The clear teaching of the New Testament is that the death of Christ was not only substitutionary but inclusive…it included you and me.

Lastly, let us consider Rachel.

‘When they were very close to Ephrath, Rachel laboured in childbirth, and she had hard labour…the midwife told her ‘Do not be afraid; you will have this son’ and so it was that as her soul was departing (for she died) that she called his name Ben-Oni, but his father called him Benjamin’

Ben-oni means ‘son of my sorrow’ whereas Benjamin means ‘son of my right hand’.

Isaiah prophesied that the coming Messiah would be a ‘Man of sorrows acquainted with grief’ Is 53 v 3 but now ‘is exalted at the right hand of God’ Acts 2v33. These twin attributes of Benjamin, Christ-like suffering and glory, serve as a prophetic sign and description of Christ and therefore of His body, the church. But for Benjamin to be born into the world Rachel – who had previously cried out to Jacob, ‘Give me children or I die’ (Gen 30v1) - had to die in childbirth. As much as Benjamin can be thought of as a prophetic image of the church to come, the preceding Rachel generation has to die. It is her calling. Rachel suffered a physical death so that physical Benjamin could be born, for the ‘Benjamin-church’ to emerge we must be willing to ‘die to’ our present pattern when it is time to move on:

Jesus said ‘Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it produces much grain’ John 12 v 24

For Abram to become the father of many nations, for his descendants to become as the sand on the seashore or as the stars in the sky he had, first of all, to leave his father’s house. The call of God upon us is the same. Not to settle. We should be thankful and honouring to all those that pioneered before, nevertheless, we must press on from Passover and Pentecost to Tabernacles, where the ‘Word became flesh and tabernacled among us and we beheld His glory’, as in Christ, now in the church-in-union-with-Christ.

Our Rachel-like call is summed up in St Paul’s words to the Galatians: ‘My little children, for whom I labour in childbirth again until Christ is formed in you’.

Specific answers to questions on matters like church government are not within the scope of this article, except to say that just as our heads coordinate everything our bodies do, Jesus as the head of the body of Christ, isn’t disconnected from His body, but coordinates everything His body does. The Spirit of God is in labour in us bringing to birth what may be called a Benjamin-generation-church, one that knows sorrow and glory in a different way than Pentecostal and Charismatic churches have known, or their predecessors in Evangelical churches.

These churches will preach Passover - the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from slavery of sin - and Pentecost - the baptism and power of the Spirit. And Tabernacles. They will know what it is to meet and function in the light and glory of God fellowshipping in Christ’s sufferings and His glory. The leaders and those born again under their ministry will know that when Christ died, they died, they were crucified with Christ and are now raised in Him as new creations. ‘Christ is your life’ is a fact not the statement of a particularly enthusiastic Christian but the New Testament norm.

Prophets call the people back to covenant promises and obedience to the word when they stray. They also carry the present and future work of God stirring in their hearts, like a pregnant woman carrying a baby yet to be born.

In this article, I have tried to follow suit. I hear that call to press on to Tabernacles. To call the church back to her pioneering Abrahamic faith; to leave our father’s house and be led by God to a place He will show us. And to be willing to die in childbirth, like Rachel, to suffer in childbirth like the apostle Paul, or to go into the ground like the seed, in order for a Passover-Pentecostal-Tabernacles church to be born in which the twin attributes of Ben-omi and Benjamin, suffering and glory, are evident.

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

The Case for renaming Easter Saturday

Easter Saturday needs a facelift. It’s the forgotten day. The quiet day between Good Friday, a holiday for many, and Easter Sunday.

If we look past Good Friday, Easter eggs, egg hunts, and the like, we know what is there: the crucifixion of the Messiah, Jesus, and on Easter Sunday, an empty tomb and the appearances of the resurrected Jesus, first as a gardener to Mary Magdalene, then to his disciples, and then to the two disciples on their forlorn, hope-shattered walk, to Emmaus.

My story is that I abandoned the agnosticism of my teenage years for faith in Christ. For me, the moment of belief was a moment, an instant of time, as I intoned the Creed ‘I believe in God…’ which, up until that point I had stopped repeating as I did not believe. But my arguments against Christianity had been eroded over a period of a year or two having carefully considered the compelling evidence supporting the historicity of the New Testament and for the resurrection.

I had accepted that Jesus was a true historical figure and that the New Testament was a reliable document and was certain that the disciples were eyewitnesses to Jesus’ crucifixion and were convinced that He had risen from the dead. But there is still an immense gulf between believing historical facts and making a personal commitment to follow Christ.

As a young child, I was always struck by the simplicity of Jesus’ invitation to the disciples: ‘Come, follow Me. And they left their nets and followed Him’. Now, I was faced with the same choice.

As I said those words ‘I believe…’ I found to my astonishment that I did.

On Easter Sundays, I am reminded that Jesus overcame death, as He said He would, appeared to His disbelieving disciples, and ate fish to prove that He wasn’t a ghost, or a figment of their imagination. That they took some convincing was further evidence to me that the New Testament was an honest account of the events of that day. None of the apostles are shown in a flattering light; they all abandoned Him when He was arrested, and none believed in the resurrection without a fight!

But all this leaves Easter Saturday.

The Jewish day starts and finishes at sunset, so to be true to the New Testament, Jesus died at 3pm on Good Friday, and His body was placed in the tomb in the evening. The Sabbath, Saturday, started at sunset and lasted through to the following sunset. On Sunday, just after dawn, on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other women went to the tomb and found it empty, followed by Peter and John. Jesus then appeared to the women, the men, and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. The third day.

None of the apostles are shown in a flattering light; they all abandoned Him when He was arrested, and none believed in the resurrection without a fight!

What happened on the Sabbath? Was Jesus ‘asleep’?

When I said the Creed, there was one line that mystified me:

was crucified, died and was buried;
he descended into hell;
on the third day he rose again from the dead;

Descended into hell? Really? What does this mean? Is there any evidence in the New Testament to support this? How was this phrase included in the Creed? Why do various more modern versions either delete this sentence or retranslate it as ‘descended to the dead’? Is this descent referring to Good Friday i.e. experienced by Jesus on the cross as part of His suffering, or after His death and before His resurrection – i.e. during the Saturday? Questions. Questions.

There are interpretations aplenty. Look at the following article for a detailed biblical analysis  (e.g. 102-04_303.pdf (biblicalstudies.org.uk) )

One of the issues for us is the use of metaphor and spiritual language alongside the more familiar vocabulary of our three-dimensional material world. Good Friday and, to some extent, Easter Sunday, can be analysed ‘materially’, on Friday Jesus was crucified, died, and was buried. On Sunday, he appeared albeit differently, but physically to the disciples. For Easter Saturday, however, the normal material tools at our disposal, are of no use. The body is in the tomb, hidden from view – the New Testament clearly states that Jesus rose on the third day, that is after sunset on the Sabbath, Saturday, and before dawn on Sunday.

For the materialist, then, relevant questions about ‘descending into hell’ include what is meant by the term ‘hell’, where is it located, and when exactly did Jesus descend there?

Spiritual thinkers, on the other hand, look beyond the physical events e.g. the arrest, the nails, the blood, the death, and the physical suffering, to consider the significance of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God in heavenly realms.

·        Material interpretation – ‘hell’ refers to the realm of the dead i.e. Sheol in Hebrew or Hades in Greek rather than Gehenna – the place of judgement and fire. This explains why many modern versions of the Apostles’ Creed replace the rather ambiguous word ‘hell’ with ‘the dead’.

·        Spiritual interpretation – the spiritual agonies Jesus suffered on the cross were as real as the physical. When He cried out ‘My God! My God! Why have you forsaken/abandoned me?’ He suffered the ultimate darkness of separation from His heavenly Father, taking our sins upon Himself, and descending into hell, for us.

So…if called upon to recite the Apostles’ Creed, I can still repeat ‘he descended into hell’. Had he not descended into hell, He would have avoided taking upon Himself the fulness of the spiritual suffering in the human race, infected, as we all are, with sin, so that we may be forgiven. And there is a more profound truth to be found in the crucifixion, we are included and taken into the death of Christ as Paul states ‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives within me. The life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me’. Christ not only took our sins so that we could be forgiven, but took us on the cross, so we could be delivered and made into new creations, replicas of Christ.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty…

In doing so, He opened up the way for God to raise us up, just as God raised Jesus from the dead. Not something we can achieve by ourselves, by any ‘religious’ or moral efforts of our own.

Two criminals were crucified with Jesus, on either side. Initially they both ‘reviled Him’ but the thief later changed his tune and said to Jesus: ‘Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom’ And Jesus said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise’. The destiny of the other criminal is less certain. Like with the early disciples, Jesus says ‘Come, follow Me’. It will never become more complicated than this. Leave everything and follow Him.

Physically Jesus died and descended into hell (the place of the dead) but, spiritually, He turned hell into paradise (a beautiful garden) for Himself and the thief. Perhaps we should rename Easter Saturday ‘Paradise Saturday’?

I’ll leave the last word on this to St Paul:

‘Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God…made Himself of no reputation…and being found in the appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of the earth, and under the earth, that every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.’  Philippians 2 v 6-11

Book Review: Home by Marilynne Robinson

This may as well serve as a double review; Home is the sequel to Gilead and so the setting, a fictional small town in Iowa, Gilead, and the principal characters remain the same.

In Home, the outlier of family, Jack Boughton, returns to live with his aging father, the retired church pastor, Reverend Robert Boughton, and his younger sister, Gloria.

Whereas Gilead’s narrator is Reverend John Ames, a lifelong friend of Reverend Boughton, and revolves around a series of letters written to his godson, Jack Boughton, Home is written in the third person and the action takes place almost entirely within the four walls of the Boughton’s house.

In some ways, this is a re-telling of the parable of the prodigal son. Like Gilead, Home is steeped in scripture and faith-related issues. Jack as a wayward youth, often in trouble with the law, now returns, his battles with alcohol unresolved, as is his family life, and faith. Will he, like the prodigal of Luke’s gospel ‘come to his senses’ and return home in a deeper way than merely geographically?

But the impact of Home for me was one of extraordinary attention to the minute detail of moods, tensions, fear of precedents, hope and disappointments, and moral dilemmas that the author, Marilynne Robinson brings to bear in Home page after page.

It’s a slow burn. Its major emotion is sadness

There are no chapter divisions – it is one long dive into the tension between old Reverend Boughton and his son Jack as they co-exist with Gloria, under one roof. In one sense they are deeply united and tender with each other, and yet there is a constant struggle to close the gap between father and son.

It’s a slow burn. Its major emotion is sadness.

So, why read Home? Why not read a good detective novel where, even if the detective is gravely flawed, you know the crime will be solved? Or a spy novel full of action and courage? Home is a blues novel, left, largely, on persistently unresolved blues notes. It does contain courage but its examination of brokenness includes failure as well as degrees of success.

So, why read it? Because it is brilliantly written.

Leaving the Ninety-Nine

The Road to Emmaus – Luke 24.

It takes about 3 hours to walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. If Cleopas and his friend, the two disciples, took an occasional break, maybe 4 hours might be nearer, but not much more than that.

If the day was ‘far spent’ by the time they and Jesus, who had appeared to them in some form of resurrection disguise it was about 7pm when they arrived in Emmaus.

After a short while at the table sharing food with Jesus, who promptly disappeared as they broke bread, they made their way back to Jerusalem, ‘they rose up that very hour’, arriving at the earliest by 9pm.

The precise location of Emmaus is unknown. Recent excavations at and near Abu-Gosh lend support for this site but there is also a Roman Catholic Franciscan church in Al-Qubeiba that celebrates Luke 24 each year. Evidence for this site is restricted to the remnants of Roman paving slabs.

The point of writing about Emmaus is that these two sites are located on the West Bank in what we often refer to as the Palestinian territories as distinct from Israel.

Gaza and the West Bank are where a diminishing number of Palestinian Christians live, their hope almost broken and shattered by a combination of poor economic conditions and persecution by hard-line fundamentalist Muslims, conditions which have forced many to emigrate.

The Palestinian Christian diaspora is part of the tragedy of the Middle East but…

…just as Jesus left the 120 in Jerusalem in search of the 2 on the road, thus literally acting out the ‘leaving the 99’ parable, neither can we, who have Christ dwelling in us, not be impelled to leave the relative comforts of where we are to search for those whose hopes, built up in Jesus maybe from childhood, have been torn to shreds by life’s events or the prevailing pressure of society.

We will find ourselves, just like Jesus, in some unlikely places, breaking bread with those whose faith and hope in Jesus has been all but broken, and yet leaving them with ‘hearts burning’ as we speak about Jesus the Messiah so that they too ‘rise up that very hour’, faith restored, hope restored and make their way, like Cleopas, to meet the resurrected Jesus.

Not a typical Friday

An alarm set for 6…ignored
Late now, stumbling, unshaven
Quick scrape with blade
Hot water on the face
Heart rate up, face the day

Walk through woods
Holding trousers up
Away from the mud
Bit sweaty reaching W-o-T
Early now, waiting for lift

Knocking mud from boots
Saying my prayers
Lift late, lift arrives
We speak, she with peppermint tea
I fumbling with mobile and rucksack

I’m unloaded
And find a Costa
Sup a flat white
Try not to get sticky fingers
Breakfast is a blueberry muffin

Was late, then early
Now waiting
Strange how unaccustomed to time
We clock people are
Perhaps more suited to eternity?

Have an hour to kill
Not listening to others’ talk
A man says have a nice day
Maybe too often and to strangers
Maybe waiting a lifetime for a nice day

We all shed clues
Our inner man
Incapable of hiding
A slight frown, or
Eyes full of music

That’s it…
I contend we are all
Musical instruments
Being played by a
Divine hand, different moods

Not a typical Friday
My time register and
Soul duly tuned, will it be
An atonal Shostakovich day
Discordant or…

An exultant symphony
Lifting us up, opening the heart
Believing one can…
At last…
Love one’s neighbour as oneself?

Extra

My friend Jon used to pass me
John, his torn open
Tube of extra strong mints
And I, worrying about halitosis
Would smile meekly
And prise from the flayed opening
The white disc of crumbling
Sinus-clearing mint

Unlike Polos
That can be sucked to
A nanometer before
Cracking on a warm tongue
Extrastrongs seem to demand
Less suck and more bite
It’s funny isn’t it
That everything is…itself?

Jon had no idea
But his simple act
Was duplicated in me
I, too, offer mints
To others, halitosis or not.
It’s really not much to do with mints
I can take them or leave themIt’s masculine and unspoken

Like grooming primates
It’s that fleeting eye contact
The physical extension of an arm
The lack of words
That communicates all that is needed
So…Jon and I would sit there
In church often, quietly crunching
Our bad-breath stoppers

Love one another
As I have loved you
Makes me wonder if Jesus
Had he been alive now
Would have bought Extrastrongs?
I think he did
I think he was disguised
As a Jon