Working toward growth.

We travelled by car from Edinburgh to Inverness, then on to Loch Ness, and back to Edinburgh the other day. I was in the middle in the back seat and had my baby grandson in his seat/cradle gadget next to me. We mistakingly think that babies sit around doing nothing, but not this kid. All through the hours of this trip he was working. He is six months old, but you could see him waving his hands about, and watching them, learning how to operate this body of his. . He would reach for things out of his reach, then squirm and twist until they could be grasped. then they had to be angled into his mouth to explore what they were. Then for a while he waved his feet in the air, twisting them this way and that. He reached for them and brought a toe down to his mouth. So it went on. He was busy, so busy he had to take a nap for awhile. Then it was back to work, trying out various sounds with his voice. Watching for a reaction. He was doing some personal work toward growth as a person. He was busy shaping what he will become in the future.
I have been reading newly purchased theology books, I began to think, "Why?" I do not preach regularly any more. I am not running a Church? These books fire me up with new thoughts and enthusiasms, but where and how do I express these? There is a point in just doing stuff for personal growth. Just as baby Xavier is busy extending his abilities, so should I, while I can, still be shaping myself as a human being, so that  I can express who I am in whatever form that takes. I need to still be a baby, growing, thinking and developing. That is the essence of life.

How we love to be "strutters!"... But..?

Eating lunch in a subways, I watched a couple of lunchtime meetings by young estimated mid to late thirties gentlemen in suits. They were intent in discussion with an obvious older "boss" who it looked like they were trying to impress. Each meeting in time finished and the young men "strutted" through the restaurant looking very pleased with themselves, shook hands with their colleagues outside and left, looking very important. I reflected that when I was their age I must have looked like that! I went to meetings, sometimes flying around the country and even overseas. We "young guns" talked strategy, planning, programmes, restructures and future. We often threw the old out for the new, and worked for change. We thought we were movers and shakers, important people.
Very soon, it seems like in the blink of an eye, you are the old ones. The changes, restructures and programmes did not really change much, just gave us the illusion of doing something important. They  have been long forgotten and thrown out by a new group of "strutters" and movers and shakers who thought they knew better. We-who-once-were-young are thought to be past our used-by date and, just when we have gathered a bit of wisdom, are on the sidelines watching.

Just before we began our trip to the UK my wife bumped into a family in the supermarket car park. The mother was with her two youngest children, now 20 years old and late twenties. We had not had contact for some time.  They all greeted my wife with warm hugs and spoke of their life, and the career paths they were on, and where they were at. All were doing well. Twenty years ago that mum lay on our couch in the foetal position for three days. She was in a mess. We spent a lot of time over a few years, caring, supporting, helping as she worked her way through to some measure of stability.  Now they are in a better state of being and lovingly hug my wife. ..... I would like to say to the young strutters of today, the sharing of love, the working for the wholeness of all, the loving in the journey of life are the long lasting satisfactions and fulfilment of life. The apostle Paul said in effect,  you can be and do all things, but if you do not have love you are just a noisy gong. Sometimes I have liked being a noisy gong, but from the perspective of old age, reality is  found in the loving.

A few pics for friends and family.

Blogger uncooperative.
It seems that it is not only my iPad that has caused problems, but according to a bloggers' forum other people are having problems with blogger. I will attempt to put a few photos up of family and

Edinburgh.

From left, Jean (my wife) grandson Leon, son Daniel, his wife Magda and the little hand is baby Xavier.

Useless ipad

I have taken an iPad on holiday with me. It seemed a good idea given that it is so much lighter than my lap top and I need to keep in touch with night shelter stuff in Dunedin. Never again. In my attempts to blog it is useless.  Very disappointed. It will not allow photos, editing is difficult and setting the document up with headings etc is impossible. So I guess I will not be blogging for a while.
Over and out.

Another "OE".

I am now in Edinburgh, on the other side of the world from Dunedin, New Zealand. I am very tired. I think it is jet lag but my wife says that "for weeks, no months, no years you have been going like hell, and now you are forced to stop." Early on Tuesday morning we boarded a plane in Dunedin, NZ and flew about an hour to Christchurch. An hour or so later we boarded a bigger plane, and after over ten hours flying we arrived at Changi, Singpore's airport. We spent two days looking around this city and at nearly midnight boarded an even bigger plane and took off for London's Heathrow airport. It took us thirteen hours to arrive there with the plane tracking up almost to Moscow, over Berlin and Amsterdam, landing at Heathrow a little earlier than the expected time of arrival, at around 6 a.m. UK time. At around 1:15 p.m. we took the final hour long flight to Edinburgh. We were happy to finish the journey.
Amazing!
At one time on my first flight I decided I had to go to the rest room, and it was while I was washing my hands that I was filled with admiration. I could dial up the heat of the water then open the tap. It was pretty good technology, but what amazed me was that the plane was carrying enough water for its hundreds of passengers to flush the toilet, and wash their hands perhaps two or three times over! That's a lot of water, volume and weight to carry. The next flight on a bigger plane had me thinking with more amazement. It was an Airbus, had an upstairs portion and was ten seats plus two aisles wide. As I sat in this massive machine, with its hundreds of passengers I marvelled at the technology. Here was a machine that could carry all this stuff and enough fuel for well over thirteen hours, nonstop! As well as this they had enough food and drink on board to feed us two meals, plus some extras. We also had a selection of food so there was more than enough. It was only not much more than 110 years ago that the Wright brothers first flew a plane - a contraption of rods, material and bolts that flew for a very short period of time - just a matter of seconds. M (Of course if you are a New Zealander you would claim that a Richard Pearce flew a similar contraption earlier than them about 100 Miles north of my home town.)    My point is that from those early beginnings until now there has been an amazing and speedy development of the aeroplane. Now I can travel in a massive machine, travelling for hours on end, entertaining me, feeding me, allowing me to sleep and accompany hundreds of others, but covering the distance in a relatively quick amount of time. (Though the pains in my posterior would want it to be even faster!) The human race is amazing? The development and evolution of such technology boggles my mind! We are clever animals!