No place like home....in the snow:

Snow comes to Dundee - early:

I have travelled to various parts of the world but there is nothing quite like stepping out of your door on a wintry morning into cold crisp snow. This was a very early fall but it was the second of the year so far. Global warming isn't warming us too much at the moment, and we hope it continues to get cold in the winters once again.

Our local church, St Peter's Free Church of Scotland in St Peter Street Dundee looks good most of the time but when the building is covered with a blanket of snow it seems to take on a fresh importance and beauty. http://www.stpeters-dundee.org.uk/

The bandstand on Magdalen Green is a bit of a landmark too, it is a specially nice place to walk in summer and winter, at any time for that matter.

The views around the whole country were wonderful during the snow fall, but there is nowhere like home.

God delusion video:

Rev. David Robertson comments on Dawkins' book:

David Robertson's You-Tube video comment on Dawkins' the God Delusion Please click here.

Fishin4Family

The Fishin4Family in full:
No matter what happens in life the family God provides you with will remain central to your life and existence in good times and in bad.
This picture (below) of Hugh & Marie was taken whilst visiting the North of England in 2007. Together they run a charity called Mission International www.mission-international.org to keep up to date on the news of Mission International click here.

David has just completed his Art degree at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee. He now is looking for a job and we hope that he finds something he will enjoy (and of course be able to provide us with the requirements of our old age in the way in which we have become accustomed).

Amy's pic (below) was taken at her 18th birthday party, she has now changed a little since then and we hope for good things for her in the future.

Stephen & Janet's pic (below) was taken whilst they were on holiday in Africa, now they are both teaching in schools nearby their home.

Mark's pic (below) was taken a few months before he died. It is the latest and best photo we have of him and of course he remains dear to our hearts and always in our memories.

What is it about Diamonds?

Gutter rats unite!
For me the idea of owning or 'digging' my life away in order to own the biggest most valuable diamond in the world, or any diamond for that matter is a complete anathema. I cannot for the life of me understand what it's all about. A lump of carbon, large or small, that can do nothing more than twinkle in the light is valued very highly. True, the poor ones that are not good enough to sit on a ring or on another lush piece of jewelery can cut glass, that's not what I am talking about, it's the sheer cruelty and brutality involved in the production of set diamonds, from recruiting of workers to digging, smuggling, preparing and selling to the ostentatiousness of the wearer that makes me choke.
As you have probaly guessed I have just seen the movie 'Blood Diamonds'. My son bought it for me on DVD for my birthday last month, and I am just getting round to watching it. Of course the movie is Hollywood-ised, but it makes one sick to think of the exploitation of the poor in order to make the richly dressed gutter rats of the western companys who deal in such tainted merchandise, behave in the way they do.

What is a life worth?
It is incredible how we humans have made what is worthless so full of worth, and how we have used what is eternally valuable and made it something that is disposable and worthless. I mean of course the battle between human life and dignity and a lump of carbon deposit.
The setting for the movie is of course the vast and untamed continent of Africa. It seems that with all of its horrors and brutality that we never see Africa cry. It is a brave continent of people that takes whatever is thrown at it and moves along silently and colourfully, bent by the poverty and pain but unyielding to the continual 'usesge' of the powerful. The movie captures wonderfully the values of the African, family, friendship and forgiveness and so eloquently describes in pictures and of course words the values of the rich, financial gain at all costs.
I have presented my wife with three rings in our almost 29 years of marriage. All three as a mark of how I esteem her and love her. I like the idea of using something that is deemed to be valuable as a means of communicating these thoughts. I am however challenged with regard to how I am now implicated in the chain of wrong that has followed these 'precious' stones on to my wife's fingers.

What's wrong with it all?
The wrong of course is not that something is deemed valuable per se but the immense wealth that is created at the expense of the very poor. How can it ever be justified, that a young lad, or a man of any age for that matter, works 'drowning' in a sea of muddy water looking for a splinter of this compressed carbon, eating and sleeping in awful conditions and left to die if sickness overcomes his exhausted frame, and as a result is able to send a pittance back to support his family whilst the seller on a rich street in Europe or America, languishing in his gilted car, dining on the very best of fare and is able to take his family off on holidays the cost of which would feed the 'digger' for a century. There is something wrong with this picture. I am not a communist but for centuries we have bemoaned the fact that as the rich get richer the poor get poorer, this should not be and we need to do something about it. The terrifying fact is that most of the diamonds mined are kept off the market in order that the price of those on the market is kept high. Not only is the digger being seriously shafted but the person in final receipt of the stones is shafted as well.

A dying cat and the man who ran away.

"What is it about men"? I heard another of my female colleagues say. She was lamenting her partner's disappearance off for 3 weeks as his pet cat of 19 years was about to transcend to the cat's celestial choir. The poor old moggy had come to the end of its days but had done so at a very inappropriate time, just as the man had split the scene leaving her to deal with the last few days and the vet and the burial and the ..... well you know what I mean. "He knew this was going to happen and beetled off before he had to take his responsibility" she continued, "what is it about me that they don't want to take responsibility"? Well I suppose I kinda see what she means, responsibility is something that is expected of the inhabitants of 'Mars' and is left to the inhabitants of 'Venus'. I almost retired, "well you wouldn't have it any other way" but I thought better of it since I am the only male in the team and offers of such male philosophy had got me in trouble before. I smiled knowingly and tried to avoid saying anything, kinda like when your wife says "does my bum look big in this" and you don't know how to respond for best since a hesitation is almost as bad as the wrong answer. I think I got away with it for now but sooner or later this female dominated work place is going to offer up a conundrum that i will not be able to answer or avoid appropriately. Should it be that no other blog material appears on this page then you might guess what has happened to me.

What is is about us men though?
I think somehow we are misunderstood! Well of course we are, how are we supposed to match up to the expectations of our gender opposites when we are low on hormones, unable to multi-task and only use a small proportion of our brains for anything else that thinking about food and sex ....... oh! and boys toys of course, I almost forgot the one thing that helps us stay ahead in any league that of spacial awareness and technical appreciation. We have moved on from the wheel, the bike the motor car repair to a higher level of life that of the computer game which allows us to stay ahead a few leaps and slashes. The Wii being the one offering that allows the ladies access to something remotely game-ish allowing tennis and the like to be enjoyed by both. maybe this is the new era where we can Wii together for eternity enjoying one another's company and having breaks while the ladies go off to play with their toys, the iron and the cooker etc and the boys do some real gaming.
Responsibility, that what we were talking about when I was whisked of to the planet between Mars and Venus - the planet Wii. We are told that we are designed for it, we are supposed not to shirk it, that our attitudes should be more au fait with it so why does it come so hard to do it? Responsibility is the domain of wimps and cissies, we need to climb back onto our metaphoric horses and ride off to the place where all men are comfortable, the TV lounge.

Fortunately I remain in one piece......
Blogging is a great thing, I have not yet been discovered as I covertly reveal these seriously un-pc comments. Really we are not all that bad us men, we've been like this for centuries and it's to be expected, even although we have to yield for a few years to the feminists and the female 'superiors' it will go back to normal eventually as the ladies go off to have the next wave of male offspring and hover around some futuristic Mothercare store. Everywhere I go I seem to be surrounded by women, in my job, at home ..... some of them may now take on a more menacing stare rather than just putting up with me as I lounge in front of the screen Homer-like. You love us really don't you?

A Man's Mortality - let's not go there!

I was doing some thinking the other day, a hard process for me when I am not able to talk it out. A friend of mine described me thus... "You are one of those people who don't know what they think until they hear what they say". Not far from the truth I think. I hate it when people tell others what I think, simply because what I think has only been verbalised once, the verbalisation process need to be distilled a few times before it comes out anything close to what it is intended to be. Anyway... I was thinking.... on quite a personal level. It seems that it is quite normal, or so I am told, for a man to consider his life as he gets older and to be very much aware of his own mortality. I have to say this is a fairly new phenomenon for me. I remember when I turned 40 I began to think about what I had achieved in life and realised that it was in fact quite little in terms of being 'immortalised' somehow. How could I leave my mark on this old world and how was I going to be remembered, if at all.

I suppose I was provoked into thinking this way after briefly considering a few people from my past. Some of those I had allowed to enter my consciousness for a few moments, had attempted to leave their mark on the community by creating a human 'structure' of large proportions and in doing so had damaged the lives of many people, including my own to some extent, in trying to achieve their goals. I often wonder why they did what they did. Was it with good motive which carried with it human frailty and mistake, or was it a means of self justification and an attempt to be remembered for ever? Maybe it started well but as a result of significant wrong choices their endeavours began to head off in the wrong direction and as a result we incapable of being corrected with our a fundamental rethink and rebuild.

Decisions made during a time of brokenness and trauma are often poorly thought through and made out of a sense of relief and to 'steady the ship' until they find out what is really wrong. Often by this time it is too late and the ship is heading in the wrong direction, a direction which will cause it to sink in the end. Rudimentary lessons need to be learned at this point and action taken, which is not pleasant, in order to meet the requirements of the situation. Poor decision which are not reversed begin a chain of reaction and inter reaction which cause untold structural and individual damage. The decision makers in poor decisions processes are often the wrong people as well. Men whose wives meddle in their affairs in order to try to get a higher more powerful profile for their husbands are particularly problematic. "Yes" men, who will do anything to be accepted (whose shoes I have to confess I have filled once or twice too often), are also bad ingredients in the mix. Those also who have a personal crusade of enlightenment to follow but who wish to take everyone else in the organisation or group with them on their journey can only cause devastating results.

I am very hopeful that I can avoid the trauma of self promotion, including being promoted wrongly by others. I often wonder, after all of the social and political climbing has died down and the dust has settled and the structures built have grown on under the auspices of another, who will remember those who bruised and buffeted to remain in their position. Will they be remembered or will anyone in the future, other than their nearest and dearest, ever give them a second thought. Well, will I make it to the end without hitting the pay dirt of self promotion, if I am honest with myself, am I already falling foul of my current hatred. Are my motives clear, or are they just grubby a little and acceptable to me and my fellow travellers? Watch this space (sheesh another cliché ) and see how the journey develops.

Misery-guts or mercy me?

Living in the real world.
It may be a great world out there for me, as I have previously announced "I love it..." but when I re-think that perspective, it may indeed appear to be a great world for me but in fact that selfish way of looking at things. I live in a most beautiful part of the world, I have a fairly secure job, I eat well every day, I'm healthy, I have an incredibly beautiful and hardworking wife, I have great kids, I drive a car, I have great friends and neighbours, I love God and try to serve my fellow man (I think) - things are good for me - man! There are lots of people out there though who don't find this world a particularly pleasing place to be for all sorts of reasons. If I have a look around, stepping for a moment out of my selfish, self absorbed default setting, I can see that its not such a great world out there for lots of people. Since our current western culture is steadily focused on money and image and status, even power it becomes hard to see the real issues as they scream out at us - kinda like a child asking mum for something as a train or a large articulated truck hammers past. The noise of their plea is absorbed and prevented from reaching the appropriate recipient by the overwhelming rush of a louder and more powerful sound. Maybe you would think I am thinking of the poor in particular?, well! certainly they have a lot to be aggrieved about but they will keep for a moment while I mention a few others of us. What about the hungry then? Yes them as well but 'hold your horses cowboy', I mean there are those out there who are miserable for all the wrong reasons. There's the rich and miserable, the healthy and miserable, the intelligent and miserable and of course the downright miserable.

Maybe it's because.....
I suppose it might be easy to set about explaining all of this with a contrived personal philosophy which could be stretched and manipulated to cover all scenarios. I will try to refrain because I think I could be very much out of my depth - but hey! its my blog - I can say what i think cant I?
In my more gracious moments I suppose I can almost see how easy it is to be ungrateful for one's lot. I came from a loving family, I was never abused (although I could think of a few school teachers who I might want to have a word with regarding the less than encouraging words they used as a parting shot as I left school without a qualification). I was well fed and looked after and remain so as my waistline can easily communicate. There are those who have not been so fortunate, whose life is blighted by one or more dreadful or unfortunate event. I suppose such folks have a reason to be less than enamoured by their lot and have a comment to make to my 'easy rider' life to date. Of course their comments might be a bit different if they knew the whole truth about me. Tragedy, redundancy, ill health in the family, family estrangements and breakups, alcoholism, etc. All of which take their toll on one's life and circumstances. Never-the-less it seems to me to be a waste of more lives if we get stuck in the 'slough of despond' as a result of events which we cannot change or reverse. Now, I do accept that there are times when we might need a bit of support or even counselling to be able to emotionally get some closure on the most damaging of events. I think however one of the most helpful and potentially theraputic options open to all of us is forgiveness. Of course to be able to forgive may not initially be available to us. How do we forgive someone who has spoiled our live and our future? That's not an easy question to answer, but it is possible. Perhaps we will have time to discuss it in more detail as time goes by, but be aware of this that forgiveness will begin the process of healing and open the door to seeing the world in a different and more positive light. Forgive me if I have made this sound a bit easy, it's not easy but it is possible.