Wearily upward

Dear neighbours The aim of this letter is to sincerely and honestly thank you. Thank you for teaching us so much about neighbourly love, acceptance and welcoming others. Through your perfect example we now know what the opposite of these virtues look like. You have shown me exactly what I do not want to be like as a neighbour. Thank you also for making our kids and their friends feel unwanted and unwelcome – even sad and afraid at times – by your racially charged comments and yelling out of windows. They too have learnt what the opposite of being a kind neighbour is through your sterling example. It gave us, as parents, the opportunity to teach our kids that there will be places and people in this world who do not like them or welcome them, and that this is okay, because they will always be loved by their parents. It is, however, unfortunate that this lesson had to be learnt at the place we have called home for 5 years. Finally, my sincere thanks to you all for making life “at home” so...

Today I started running (again). This was because I wore a piece of clothing yesterday that I would have labelled as "loose fitting" before wearing it yesterday. Just to make it abundantly clear: the piece of clothing (an old rugby shirt) can no longer be described as "loose fitting", but borders on "being sprayed on" like the Waratahs jerseys of the early 2000's... I started using the Couch To 5K app (again), which is brilliant. I have the amazing Sarah Millican telling me when to start walking and when to start running with a "Are you ready? Gooo!" in her inimitable accent with just the right balance between optimism and realism. When I was younger I would never have thought I'd need an English comedian telling me when to run or walk on an app because I was so unfit. I played rugby, coached squash, ran half-marathons, for goodness sake! I was fit and healthy! It was also at that time that my rugby shirt was, very much, "loose fitti...

My family and I visited friends and family in South Africa recently. For a part of our trip we stayed on a game farm, so, naturally, we went on loads of game drives. A photographer's paradise!  On one of these drives we were completely surrounded by a herd of about 10 elephants. There's something special about being that close to something that wild and that big, but also that peaceful; to be at the mercy of such immense power, but not feeling afraid (sound familiar?). If it sounds spectacular, it really was!  It would almost seem like a bit of a let-down seeing this bird and its young a few minutes later. It is a picture of a Greater Painted Snipe ( Goudsnip in Afrikaans) protecting its young from a bunch of people in a big game viewing Land Cruiser. But the more I think about it, the more I am amazed at this incredible expression of love, care, courage and sacrifice. I am reminded of Psalm 91:3-4 (NIVUK): "Surely he will save you from the fowler's snare and from the...

There are a lot of focus on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence at the moment. It really is an exciting and terrifying technology that is already influencing so much of what we do and know today; from algorithms that suggest what ads we see on websites to self-driving cars, and so much more. Exciting because the possibilities of what can be achieved is quite possibly endless. Terrifying for the same reason, and also that the long-term consequences of using this technology are still largely unknown. Does any of this remind you of something else? Something else that has a near-infinite capacity for doing good and/or evil? Something else that influences lives in significant yet unseen ways? Something else that has consequential actions which echo far beyond the here and now? I am, of course, thinking of human beings. More specifically, the human mind and heart. I'm sure you have heard the old adage "You can do anything you put your mind to." credited to Benjamin Fra...

I can't help but think that I disappoint my wife and kids more often than not. I get the sense that my wife fell in love with her mental picture of me back in the day, and I just can't live up to that person. At least not as much as I would like to. She never says this, but I get a vibe every now and then - a well timed sigh loud enough to hear from the other room, the uncontrollable look of disappointment when I don't do something "the right way", etc. My kids, on the other hand, just outright tells it as it is. Children are honest and sincere like that. I wonder whether that is why Jesus welcomed them so openly...  Anyway. It's hard when expectations outweigh our abilities. Or, put differently, it's hard when the reality of who we are does not line up with the expectation of who we are. We all do it. We all set expectations of others, mostly determined by our own experience and preferences. For example: a teacher has a classroom of children, each with th...

Trust is an interesting thing. Even a scary thing at times. But it's something we do every day, inadvertently. We were driving to Devon just after Christmas for some time away after a busy year full of many changes. I quit my job, started (and successfully completed) a Data Science bootcamp, our son started Reception, and our daughter seemed to have become an 8-year old teenager overnight. Anyway. I was driving us to a place in Devon I've never been to, using Google Maps to guide our way. I tried to work out how we  used to travel before phone based GPS's were a thing (I still can't remember what that was like...).  Anyway.  I realised that we were putting our trust in something without knowing how it works to get us somewhere we've never been, on a road where we didn't see the destination until we got there (in the dark). That's trust. And never once did I doubt that we'll get there. Then I realised that we were putting our trust in Google Maps for a co...