These Lively Oracles

Many, many years ago, when I was a lot younger, and lot more foolish than I am now, I got into a game of cards. It wasn’t organised or planned. I just happened to be walking home late one night when I called into an all-night shop for something to eat. There was no one else in the shop save the two guys behind the counter. One guy had a deck of cards in his hand and he was shuffling them. Nowadays kids have fidget spinners. This guy just shuffled cards. I asked him if he’d like to see a card trick that I knew. I showed him it and then showed him how I did it. To cut a long story short we ended up playing cards. After a couple of games the money became involved. Not a lot. Just a few quid to pass an hour of time. But eventually I cleaned him out. Won all of his money. As I lifted the money he asked, “Lend me a couple of quid so that I can have a chance to win my luck back”. I said, “Mate, You haven’t had much luck up to now. What makes you think things are gonna be any different i...

  Six months. Twenty Six essay blogs. Many nights thinking and praying. Many hours composing and editing. A lifetime of friendships and experiences. That’s what this project has been built on. I started it because my mind needed to be decluttered. Sometimes I’d lie in bed at night and stare into the darkness and dream of preaching a sermon or taking part in a bible discussion group. I would generate new thoughts and combine bible passages in my mind. Only to waken the next morning and they’d all be gone. Forgotten. That frustrated me a lot. And so, the blog was born. But what is a blog without the sharing of real tangible experiences with real tangible people. I have read many blogs and watched many vlogs. But they didn’t hold much meaning because they were just words, clichés and sayings. They didn’t actually relate to anything in real life friendships. I didn’t know how to start or what to write. And then I remember a scene from the movie “Finding Forrester” starrin...

My working life and my church life have shared one thing in common. And it’s this. Once I resigned or left a place I never returned or looked back. I never had any desire to walk over the old ground again. I have always tried to be someone who looked forward to things. I tried to learn new subjects. Meet new people. Gain new experiences. But sometimes there will be times when we have to look back at something or redress something. I also have had to do that on several occasions. And the reason was that I had left the jobs or churches without really thinking about the reasons why. I just moved on. Quickly. Suddenly. Decisively. And I never looked back. However, sometimes this was not the best way to do things. I needed to revisit the scenario in my mind to reconsider the reasons that I had left there. For they were sometimes having an affect on my mindset as I moved forward. The suddenness of leaving a job meant that I was sometimes left carrying old reactions and bringing them into t...

          I never enjoyed school. Nobody really does but I disliked it to a whole other level. Although I was smart enough to be in one of the higher level classes I never did well. I got the chance to leave school early and start an apprenticeship. Once again, I never did well. I got great exam results, but didn’t really enjoy the whole experience. When I finished the apprenticeship I moved through life from job to job, friendship to friendship, relationship to relationship never really understanding in what direction I was going or what I was trying to achieve in life.           When I reached the age of 40 I got the opportunity to return to higher level adult education. I seized this eagerly since I saw it as an opportunity to build on the apprenticeship that I had finished 20 years earlier.           Also, within a year of that I was put into a position where I had to make a radical life-changi...