text:
Ever had moments in your life when a particular song has powerfully, poignantly, reflected your life experience at that time?
Music, like storylines on TV or in books, has a way of vicariously expressing our emotions and experiences in a way that transcends our own ability to do so, providing therapeutic benefit – an affirmation, even, of what we're going through.
My Life's Soundtrack takes some of the songs that have been pertinent to me, to provide a musical tour through certain periods of my life. An autobiographical soundtrack, which I hope will provide some inspiration, some faith and hope to those who read it.
I originally posted these in a series of 6 parts. Below are those parts in one place, after a little bit of fresh editing.
The first record I ever bought was Spread Your Wings, one of Queen's less famous singles – only reaching No.34 in the charts – but a superb, moving song all the same, finishing with a wonderful, plaintive guitar solo (and the fabulous, fast & furious Sheer Heart Attack on the B-side).
At the tender age of 12, with precious little money for records, and music so much dearer in real terms back then in 1978, my first venture into purchasing records was to buy ex-chart singles at reduced prices from our local record shop. Spread Your Wings was the first of these.
Sammy was low
Just watching the show
Over and over again
Knew it was time
He'd made up his mind
To leave his dead life behind
Throughout my teen years, the lyrics seemed to confirm a sense of my life being futile, and my longing to leave it all behind. I didn't consider suicide – except once, a couple of years later: neither an expression of depression nor a cry for help, but a cold, calculated plan to end it all simply because life was meaningless and why bother to go through all the hassle of a life fraught with challenges and difficulties? That was how I saw things. My suicide plan was thwarted by hearing that a girl I fancied also fancied me! A temporary reason for living, at least. Would I have really gone through with the plan otherwise? I don't know – I suspect not – I don't think I'd have had the bottle. And what I really wanted was to escape.
Spread your wings and fly away
Fly away far away
Spread your little wings and fly away
Fly away far away
The words of the song's chorus echoed my longing to simply escape – to travel. Escape from the rat race, responsibilities, worries, and to just 'bum around the world' with my only few possessions on my back.
Why such disillusioned thoughts and feelings at such a young age? Teenage angst? Disenchantment with the Thatcherite society in the grip of recession and high unemployment? I'm not sure how aware I was of the country's socio-economic climate at the time, although I did grow to hate England and wanted to be anywhere and everywhere else, and I'm sure adolescent changes also played a part.
But other factors in my life were far more significant.
No doubt the constant acrimony in my family scarred me heavily. I've heard it said that boys tend to be more deeply affected by divorce than girls. However true this theory is (and it probably was, in the case of me and my sister), my parents 'stayed together for the sake of the kids' for many years, unwittingly inflicting avoidable damage on the two of us till they finally separated and divorced about the time I left school, well after the damage had been done.
Years of bitterness and stress in the family home meant that home was not 'home'. It was not where I wanted to be. I grew into a very insecure and immature young man with poor social skills and low motivation. Generally messed-up.
He spends his evenings alone in his hotel room
Keeping his thoughts to himself he'd be leaving soon
Wishing he was miles and miles away
Nothing in this world nothing would make him stay
At the same time, I baulked at the 'rat race' (a term used less these days), as I witnessed the apparent pointlessness of modern life's treadmill and the unhappiness of materialism, at least in my own close-at-hand, family experience. In my late teens, The Specials put it across well for me:
Working for the rat race
You know you're wasting your time
Working for the rat race
You're no friend of mine
Education and exams held no appeal and by the time I reached sixth-form, which offered some of the freedom I'd longed for, I'd virtually given up bothering and I flunked my A-levels.
But back to the Queen song:
Since he was small
Had no luck at all
Nothing came easy to him
Now it was time
He'd made up his mind
'This could be my last chance'
Some things came easy to me, others seemed really hard. I was assessed as having a high IQ at an early age and excelled at some subjects, but was also labelled 'naughty' at an even younger age. With what we know now, I'm pretty certain I had Dyspraxia – a term known as Clumsy Child Syndrome years ago, and today often used interchangeably with Developmental Coordination Disorder.
Signs in my case (mostly 'grown out of' now) were general clumsiness, poor fine motor skills – particularly affecting handwriting (my work colleagues would probably say this is one aspect I've yet to 'grow out of'!), inconsistency over which hand I'd write with (not the same as being ambidextrous), and – the one that instigated the 'naughty' label from teachers (and today could be mistaken for ADHD in some children) – restlessness. Classroom disruption was, perhaps understandably, construed as deliberate naughtiness.
And of course, as children, we start to believe our labels.
From this combination of childhood experiences emerged a pattern of disruptive, disturbed and difficult behaviour throughout my early years and teens.
My first opportunity to run away came when I'd been caught shoplifting for the umpteenth time. The shop owners were going to tell my parents, and I couldn't face the shame again. I was now 16, in my first year of a comprehensive sixth-form.
Before this, I'd spent 2 years at a public school, from which I was suspended for a time after selling goods I'd stolen to fellow pupils. I'd received a Junior Criminal Record for this, bringing shame to my father – a lawyer working for the magistrates' courts. And I was shamed in front of the whole school as someone awarded a place on a scholarship and expected to be one of their higher achieving pupils.
(Fortunately, the discipline of this school, combined with my own abilities, was sufficient to scrape me through enough O-levels for my entry into nursing years later).
Now here I was, unable to face my parents again. The perfect reason to run away.
Now it was time
He'd made up his mind
'This could be my last chance'
I started to hitch-hike from the small Sussex town where I'd been caught, to London, with no possessions and just a few coins in my pocket. It was getting dark, and hitch-hiking became impossible. I sneaked into a private garden and tried to sleep in a greenhouse. It was a cold night, I had no warm coat, let alone a sleeping-bag, and I froze. Sleep eluded, and I resumed hitch-hiking about 4am, and although still dark, I got a lift and made it to London early morning.
Not knowing my way round London, I soon felt hopelessly lost, hungry and tired. I stole a pint of milk off a doorstep and bought a cold meat pie. Before long I'd formed a better plan – head for Brighton, which I knew relatively well, and sleep on the streets there. But pick up a few things from home on the way.
I managed to hitch home. Luckily for me, no one was there and I started to gather a few things into a bag. Now of course, the previous evening my parents had reported me missing to the police and were worried. While I was there at the house that afternoon, the police arrived, hoping to ask my parents some more questions, but instead found me there!
Suffice to say that my escape this time round from home, the rat-race and everything, was short-lived, at a mere 24 hours. The next one is another story…….
But here's a wonderful thing:
Some 5 years later, in 1987, when I made my first stumbling prayer to God while travelling, and Jesus began to transform and heal me, one of the very first changes that happened immediately in my heart was a real sense that God was calling me back to England: to come 'home', to use the intelligence, energy, good health (and now faith) that I'd been given to help others – not only practically, but spiritually too. That sense of vocation has never left me to this day, and is the basis for the work that I do now, more than 25 years later, and the reason for writing this blog.
The restlessness, the dissatisfaction, the need to be on the move, disappeared immediately. Even now, when people speak of wanting to visit this country or that country, to travel more, I have no huge hankering, and wonder what the fuss is all about. I'm OK where I am.
Here's another wonderful thing:
In the good book, God is described with maternal as well as paternal qualities, and is sometimes likened to an eagle or hen longing to cover her chicks with her wings to protect and nurture them (e.g. Psalm 91:4 and Luke 13:34). He 'spreads his wings' over us, covering us with his love, and enables us to 'fly', free from the spiritual, psychological and emotional chains that once held us back. That's been my incredible experience.
How amazing is the grace of God.
Bruce is oblivious to the road signs flashing in front of his eyes, as he careers distractedly down the highway, pleading desperately with God for a sign, a signal, guidance, a miracle, anything…
He crashes the car. Of course he blames it on God. Eventually, though, Bruce (Jim Carrey) kneels on the highway in surrender to God, and in so doing is hit by a truck and killed! As you do…
God (played by the magnificent Morgan Freeman) sees the bigger picture and uses all Bruce's circumstances for the greater good. Bruce is defibrillated back to life – to start living again with a new purpose.
But how did Bruce fail to see the signs?
And does God speak to people who are angry with him? Or even to atheists?
Does God believe in people who don't believe in him?!
Could it be that there are non-religious, non-faith people everywhere, missing signs that God is giving them?
And how does the film Bruce Almighty manage to address so many profound questions so brilliantly???!
Back in 1985, Easy Lover by Philip Bailey and Phil Collins was in the charts:
She's the kind of girl you dream of
Dream of keeping hold of
You'd better forget it
You'll never get it
She will play around and leave you
Leave you and deceive you
Better forget it
Oh you'll regret it
She's an easy lover
She'll get a hold on you believe it
Like no other
Before you know it you'll be on your knees
She's an easy lover
She'll take your heart but you won't feel it
She's like no other
And I'm just trying to make you see
I had a job at the time at Martin's which, for a newsagent, sold all sorts of strange things, like chart records, and Easy Lover, a No. 1 hit, seemed always to be on. I was never a fan of Phil Collins or this record, but as I heard it, the song struck a chord somewhere in my subconscious.
I'd been swept up in a whirlwind romance with a girl called Sue. It was a mutual falling-in-love. We were both a bit lost – I more so. Both of us were looking for adventure.
I was looking for more than adventure – I needed to escape. I was now 19, had left school 18 months earlier, with my A-levels flunked, and was living with my Dad after my parents' divorce.
My Dad and I didn't get on. My job at Martin's, as far as I was concerned, was a dead-end. My friends had gone to university or moved away. I had nothing to live for, aim for, strive for, and still had this unfulfilled yearning to escape. It was all I could see myself doing.
Then along came Sue. She was living in France on a 1-year placement as part of her degree in French and philosophy. I'd met her while I was visiting my sister who was also in France for her degree.
A short while after this, Sue came over to England to see me and we were going to camp together somewhere for the weekend. But within 24 hours we'd concocted a mad plan to 'elope' to America. We worked out what we'd need to do: withdraw the few hundred quid my parents had saved in a building society account for me since I was little and had just recently released into my name; pick up my passport, rucksack and other bits & bobs from home; hitch-hike up to London to obtain visas from the American Embassy; then hitch to Gatwick to catch the cheapest single flight to New York.
To be honest, it started as a joke, a hypothetical strategy: what would we need to do if we eloped to America?
But, with nothing to lose (at least in my case), we impetuously started acting out the reckless plan, and within 3 or 4 days of meeting back up in England, we were sitting on a plane to the USA. Astounded at our own audacity, we laughingly asked each other, "What the **** are we doing?!" It was a wild, impulsive, romantic adventure.
We planned to spend a few years travelling the States (in the end we were there just 6 months, hitch-hiking, getting stoned, weaving our way through some crazy adventures. The early return was precipitated by Sue's decision to return to university to finish her degree – a decision which I encouraged).
On our way to Gatwick, we'd stopped at my friend Dave Bridger's place and told him what we were doing. We told no one else: my Dad, my Mum, my other friends, Martin's, no one. Once again I was reported by my Dad to the police as a missing person.
Just days earlier I had been working in Martin's, bored witless, being subjected to some dire chart records, and yet somehow bothered by that song Easy Lover.
I wasn't religious, I wasn't even superstitious, and I certainly wasn't in any way spiritual. I was a diehard atheist, an immature, messed-up, selfish 19-year-old, with no life philosophy other than 'sex & drugs & rock 'n' roll', and 'I'll try anything once, except heroin'!
So why did this song bother me?
No you'll never change her, so leave it, leave it
Get out quick cos seeing is believing
It's the only way
You'll ever know
Easy lover
She'll get a hold on you believe it
Like no other
Before you know it you'll be on your knees
She's an easy lover
She'll take your heart but you won't feel it
She's like no other
And I'm just trying to make you see
You're the one that wants to hold her
Hold her and control her
You'd better forget it
You'll never get it
For she'll say there's no other
Till she finds another
Better forget it
Oh you'll regret it
Somewhere deep inside (I didn't really, consciously, register it) the song seemed to be a warning about this relationship.
In hindsight, if something – or God – was warning me about what I was getting myself into, I certainly wasn't ready to hear it. But if it was God warning me, he was of course right!
One year later, 6 months after returning to the UK from America, in the Spring of 1986, the inevitable break-up occurred, involving Sue's unfaithfulness, me being threatened with a gun by the new boyfriend, followed by being physically thrown out of his house on to the ground outside by him and his mate.
Sue had been my infatuation, my world. Now my world came crashing down around me, leaving me bereft, bereaved and humiliated.
Does God speak to atheists? Had God been speaking to me through that song? And if he was, would he have expected that immature atheist teenager to listen and respond?
I'll let you decide the answers to those questions.
But like in Bruce Almighty, although there was no way at that time I could have heeded any sort of warning from anybody, it seems an 'unseen hand' was behind the whole chain of events – from meeting Sue, to embarking on those wild times in the States, to being cast aside and crushed like refuse – bringing everything together in a bigger plan to a greater conclusion.
You may interpret events differently, but I look back and see how the One I'd never believed in oversaw and utilised all those circumstances, to bring me eventually (not till October 1987) to the ultimate Healer, and to the start of a whole new adventure – one of following Jesus.
Being able to look back and understand the way he worked in my life throughout those times, I'm grateful now for everything that happened. Because the end result has been amazing!
Without my pride being broken in 1986, I would perhaps never have been able to start to search for meaning and truth. Maybe my mind would never have been opened to spiritual things, and I'd never have found this incredible new life.
My story of love found, love betrayed and lost, is by no means unusual.
I'm also not the only one who's found the ultimate antidote!
The Father is a love divine, a faithful friend, a firm foundation, to millions. His love heals the pain of our rejections and betrayals, and gives us capacity to forgive and to give, as we share in the love and power of the crucified, death-conquering, persecutor-forgiving Saviour's love.
Years later this love led me to Janine, whose unswerving, devoted love has been a source of immense healing. God's love is demonstrated through human beings. This love, this Saviour, has been and still is the most solid foundation for our relationship.
His love led me from chaotic, selfish relationships, to successful, steadfast, happy marriage.
Have you read – or missed – any signs lately?
Untold adventures reeled out mysteriously before me into the endless American landscape, as I stood apprehensively at the side of the freeway, thumb outstretched, recalling the Whitesnake song:
Here I go again on my own
Goin' down the only road I've ever known,
Like a drifter I was born to walk alone
An' I've made up my mind,
I ain't wasting no more time
…'Cos I know what it means
To walk along the lonely street of dreams
The words described my life to a T. Here I go again, hitching round the States. The lonely, insecure drifter, born to walk alone, to 'bum around the world', to travel free….free from possessions, responsibilities, relationships.
This time, solo. Freedom to change plans without discussion, be totally impulsive, go anywhere any time. Here I go again, this time on my own.
I'd built up to this for the last eighteen months. Ever since the first trip round America was curtailed by Sue's return to University in October '85 and our subsequent split in '86, all I'd wanted was to return to the States, visit all the places I hadn't got round to the first time, then continue on to India and the rest of the world.
There were similarities and differences between the first trip and this one.
Once again I planned to stay in the States for several years, and once again I only stayed 6 months. Although my plans didn't extend to taking 50 years to see America (a year for each state) as some travellers I'd met suggested, I did intend to take my time immersing myself in cultures across the country, taking in states I hadn't ventured into in '85.
I worked out later that I hitch-hiked roughly 15,000 miles this time round – about 5,000 more than on the first trip. 15,000 miles between:
playing poker over a bottle of whisky in Pensacola, Florida…
being threatened with a blunt kitchen fork by a guy high on alcohol and cocaine, if I didn't take my trousers off…
painting & decorating, and snorting crystal meth, in Portland, Oregon…
enjoying a charity Mexican breakfast in East LA (complete with eggs and chillies)…
running as fast as I could from a supermarket in Mississippi before the cops arrived, after being caught shoplifting two packs of 200 cigarettes, to sell to truck drivers…
and sleeping under the stars at the base of the Grand Canyon.
And much more in between.
This time the travels came to an end after 6 months, not because I needed to come back, but because I no longer needed to travel. The restlessness of my heart had been cured. But more on that in Part Four.
This trip wasn't spontaneous, unlike the first. I'd saved my money, working at a timber yard near Lewes, and by buying and selling small amounts of cannabis – keeping myself supplied with my own 'needs' in the process. I'd saved up the cash for my flight and enough to live on for a couple of months or so, until I could find work over there.
I closed my bank account, handed in my notice at the timber yard, sold or gave away all my possessions except those I needed in my rucksack, and ended my relationship with my then girlfriend. Although I'd been with her for a few months, I had no great emotional attachment, though I'm not sure she felt the same way. Looking back, I was quite ruthless, determined to pursue my aim.
On this second trip to the USA, I entered via the Canadian border at Windsor / Detroit. I figured that if they didn't let me in, I could at least explore Canada instead. On my first visit, with Sue, we'd been foolish enough to buy single flights and therefore encountered a lot of questions at Immigration at Newark airport, with our measly few hundred dollars and big rucksacks. They finally let us in for 2 weeks and we stayed 6 months, working when we could (illegally) and living frugally.
This time I was fully prepared, with an address I was supposedly going to be staying at and a return flight that I wouldn't be using. Even so, sweat poured off me at Immigration, as I anxiously expected them to produce some record of my previous over-stay and to turn me away. Instead, there was no problem and I was free to enter the Land of the Free!
Here I go again, doing what I knew. A seasoned hitch-hiker, with expertise in all the tricks of the trade. Feeling slightly hesitant, but only because it was so long since I'd been on the road, and because in all my worries about whether they'd let me into the country, I'd actually made no plans as to where I was going to head for first!
There was one crucially significant difference this time, though. As I started out on this new expedition, I had an inherent sense that everything was going to be all right. At the time I called it a 'positive attitude', but it wasn't a deliberate decision to keep an optimistic outlook. For no rational reason, I was firmly convinced that even if I got attacked, robbed – whatever happened – everything would be OK in the end. I was still an atheist, but a couple of years later, as I reflected on this time, I understood.
For some strange reason, in 1986, about a year before returning to America, I'd started to read the Bible! I'd always claimed that this ancient book, or collection or books, was full of contradictions and myths. Of course, this was just what I'd heard from other people – I'd never actually read the thing! Inexplicably, I suddenly decided it would be a good idea to read it and make up my own mind.
I bought a little, old, second-hand, King James Bible (the one with all the 'Thee's and 'Thou's) for 10p from a charity shop in Dundee (where I was living at the time), and proceeded to read the New Testament from beginning to end, followed by the Old. At the end of which I'd be able to give an informed opinion.
So my reading began with Matthew…
I made it through a few chapters of this Gospel, then forgot all about it, and the Bible was abandoned.
I barely started the New, let alone the longer, harder, Old Testament. But, as I know now, the Bible is a rather special book….
As I absorbed the teachings of Jesus in that first section of Matthew (known as the Sermon on the Mount), I was gobsmacked.
Love your enemies, not just your friends. Forgive them, love them. Pray blessings on your persecutors. Wow! If the whole world did this, I reckoned, there'd be no more war.
Even at the time, this had such a profound impact on me, that when Sue's new boyfriend threatened me with a gun and physically chucked me out of his house on to the ground – after my initial, instinctive thought of chucking a brick through his car windscreen, I opted instead to write him a letter of apology for having burst into his house! Never mind the fact that he'd nicked my girlfriend, stolen my reason for living, assaulted and humiliated me! I was apologising to him. I also forgave Sue.
Love your enemies. Be reconciled to them, if at all possible. Who knows, they may change in response to your actions. And even if they don't, at least you've done your part in ending this world's pandemic of war and conflict.
Even now, 27 years later, this teaching, with its ultra-revolutionary potential – and the possibility of God enabling us to live it – fills me with excitement and passion. My heroes these days are people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, who themselves, having been inspired by the Sermon on the Mount, have applied these earth-shaking principles in real, international conflicts and in personal, individual struggles, before a global audience. It blew my mind then and does now.
How is it possible that this then-atheist was willing and able to live out this teaching? Who knows? But I believe now that God is not limited. The Holy Spirit is able to influence the hearts and minds of humans of all persuasions. And, as I stated earlier, the Bible is a rather special book.
It claims that faith comes to people through hearing (or reading) its words.
As well as the radical teaching on forgiveness, I was stunned by Jesus' words about how God clothes the fields with wild flowers and feeds the sparrows, so why should we worry about tomorrow, about what we'll eat or drink? Will not God take care of us? Somehow, something about this idea resonated in the heart of this young man who didn't even believe in God!
A year later, standing by the American freeway, intuitively knowing that everything was going to be OK and there was nothing to worry about – I didn't realise then, but later on I came to understand that faith had started to bud in my heart through reading those words of Jesus.
Conscious awareness and acknowledgment of God came months later, after I'd seen first-hand evidence for this rebuttal of worry, in the form of food, money and shelter being provided at just the right time, over and over again, during my travels.
Only this week, having googled the lyrics for Here I Go Again for this blog, did I discover that the song contains these words:
Though I keep searching for an answer
I never seem to find what I'm looking for
Oh Lord, I pray you give me strength to carry on
'Cause I know what it means to walk along the lonely street of dreams.
I had no idea previously that this song made any mention of faith and prayer. How strangely prophetic was Whitesnake about my life!
But for now, in May 1987, here I was… on the freeway, poised to venture down 'the lonely street of dreams' for what was to be the very last time.
I only ever took acid once. Not for lack of wanting to – just that it seldom came my way. Magic mushrooms, on the other hand, were a staple part of my diet. OK, I exaggerate slightly, but I did have numerous – mainly bad – trips on fungi which failed to make me a fun guy (excuse the bad pun)!
This is now Sept or Oct '87, in Portland, Oregon, out partying with friends. That is, Leon & Gary, and their friends: I'd met these teenage brothers 2 years earlier after Doug, their truck driver Dad, had given me and Sue a lift for several hundred miles. We had then stayed with Doug and his family at his house in Portland.
Unfortunately, by the time I returned to the States in '87, Doug and his wife Lyn had separated, but Lyn very kindly resumed the hospitality. She also found me work with painter/decorator Ray Galloway, who was a key player in my journey to new life, and I remain incredibly grateful to both Lyn and Ray.
This night in '87, much weed had been smoked, and a fair amount of crank snorted (not crack, but crank, which in more recent years hit the UK press as 'crystal meth' or methamphetamine), before a single acid (LSD) tab was ingested by each of the group. It seemed to take several hours for us to 'come up' on the acid – then in the early hours Leon invited me for a drive down the freeway. He liked to night-drive whilst tripping.
Remember the racing car game, Pole Position? I used to play it in the Brighton arcades, and now with the all the lights and coloured cat's eyes, the road before us had become an animated arcade screen, like Pole Position. Only even more vibrant. As we drove in spaced silence, I assumed that Leon was sharing the same experience.
Band on the Run by Wings played in magical, crystal clear quality in my head, and I assumed this was running through Leon's brain too, as he drove quietly and confidently down the night-time Oregon highway.
Later, though, when real music played on the radio, Bob Dylan came on, interrogating me with incisive questions about my itinerant life:
…When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose
You're invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
I was abruptly confronted with my loneliness. The song pointedly proclaimed my inner aloneness…rootlessness…aimlessness…homelessness…friendlessness….invisibility. At this time, I had no passport or ID after everything had been stolen (details later), compounding my anonymity.
I had nothing to lose and no one. Perhaps I had chosen that path, or perhaps I'd been steered, destined by childhood conditioning, down the lonely road. Either way, it was no longer something desirable.
Taking hallucinogenics may heighten or release existing emotions, and this moment, this encounter with Dylan's words, confirmed semi-suppressed feelings already emerging in my soul.
Don't get me wrong. This LSD trip was not a religious revelation. I don't subscribe to George Harrison's description of his first acid trip, as the late Beatle recounted:
"The first time I took it, it just blew everything away. I had such an incredible feeling of well-being, that there was a God and I could see Him in every blade of grass".
Many ancient cultures and religions see the use of hallucinogenics as a pathway to some kind of divine consciousness.
In my experience since that time, God the Father, who is love, does not readily share space with our addictions and our chemical-induced mind-messing. After coming to a simple faith in Jesus a short time after this night in '87, the experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit eluded me until I desired him more than drugs, music or anything else.
When I finally reached that moment in 1989, the sense of being infused with his love and forgiveness left me with no desire to get stoned or drunk ever again. Satisfaction comes in the shape of sacrificial love.
Hallucinogenics and the true God, in my view, do not easily mix. He wants the very best for us and that best is himself living in us.
But prior to this night trip through Oregon, a variety of (non-drug-related) experiences had been gradually shaking my atheism.
The origins of the universe, the purpose of existence, and the strange world of the microcosmos – questions that haunted and taunted me – now all seemed to point to something or someone greater than the human mind can comprehend. The fact that existence existed blew my mind.
Simultaneous to an evolving conviction that 'God' was the only logical explanation for the existence of anything, emerged a pattern of experiences on the road, of either coincidental good luck or provision by a higher power.
On one occasion, with no prospect of earning any money, and just $28 to my name, I lost a $20 bill.
I had jumped an open freight train and enjoyed the unique experience of journeying 1700 miles of wild western landscapes, over about 36 hours, through several states, from Boise, Idaho, to Chicago.
I was meeting with my sister, who was on holiday visiting a friend. We hitched together for a couple of days from Chicago to Detroit, and caught a ride with a father and son who were on their way to a Pentecostal conference. Ruth and I sat in the back, as the middle-aged son drove. During the journey, the elderly Dad in the front passenger seat turned to us, and without asking our permission, took our hands and prayed! It was a long, fervent, heartfelt prayer. I've never remembered what he prayed, even at the time, let alone now, but I've never forgotten the effect: I felt uplifted, upbeat, like nothing could go wrong.*
This godly father and son, as they dropped us off in Detroit, not knowing about my $20 loss, gave us $40, which Ruth left with me, as I had the greater need. It seemed like God or Something had doubly covered my loss.
Another time, after spending the night in a homeless hostel, I stepped out onto the city streets that were beginning to simmer under the Kansas sunrise, with no money, no food, and one cigarette to my name. I'd just walked out the door when I was approached by a stranger asking for a cigarette. "Why not!" I thought, and gave him my last smoke.
Kansas City
Later that day, a driver I'd hitched a lift with offered me a cigarette, which I accepted. As we continued along the road, he told me that when he'd bought his usual pack of cigarettes that morning, he'd discovered they were Buy One Get One Free, so he gave me one of the two packs, not knowing about my gift to a stranger that morning. God or Something (?) had given me 20 times return on my giving. (I quit smoking tobacco just a few months after that).
Coincidence? Maybe.
At least once, I looked up to the sky and suggested jokingly, "Someone up there likes me"!
After a few more such 'coincidences', I began to wonder seriously, "Maybe someone up there really does like me"!
As I began to think maybe there could be a God helping me, and as I also met travellers who carried virtually nothing, I started to wish I wasn't 'burdened' by my big rucksack with sleeping-bag, tent and clothes and could have the opportunity to see whether 'God', if he was there, would provide if I had literally nothing!
One time, I ended up travelling with a gay guy called Richard, who was in effect moving house and had all his valuables with him, including a ton of bling! As two males hitch-hiking together, it's pretty difficult to catch rides, and we found ourselves stuck going nowhere on the freeway.
In hindsight, what happened next was an incredibly stupid thing to do, but chaotic, messed-up people don't always make the wisest decisions. We hid our rucksacks in some bushes a short way from the freeway and walked to the nearby town where we'd heard there was some kind of hostel. The next morning we returned to our rucksacks, to find a few of our possessions strewn around the ground and the rest gone! All Richard's gold jewellery. My passport, credit card (which I never used but kept as a back-up), tent, sleeping-bag etc. All gone.
Richard was understandably furious. I didn't like to admit it to him, but I felt relieved to be travelling really light and strangely happy with anticipation at a new opportunity!
The next few days were difficult, as we ended up in some bad company, so as soon as I could I slipped away on my own again, eager to see whether God would provide. Very soon, I was taken into the home of a wonderful couple, who gave me everything I needed for now.
Some drivers who gave me lifts were Christians, who took the opportunity to tell me about how their lives had been changed by Jesus. Their faces seemed to glow with genuine passion and their eyes seemed to shine with joy. Jesus said the eyes are the window to the soul.
Amongst people of all sorts of faiths and denominations, I remember catching a ride with one particular young Mormon man, who was out to spread his message. But the message and the messenger were dry – there was no glow, no vibrancy, about this man. No hint of transformation, of Holy Spirit power. Unlike the Christians.
I argued with these drivers. I disagreed with preachers at nightshelters and hostels run by Christian missions and the Sally Army. Some of them made you sit through a talk before being given a meal. Although I wonder about the ethics of this now, I guess it worked for me!
Then I worked with Ray, the painter, in Portland. He'd been a Christian for 3½ years. He told me how his life had been turned around, and his lifestyle confirmed his words.
As we worked together, I told him what I thought about Christianity, how I believed in some Buddhist ideas and how the Universe was probably just a dream of itself (figure that one out?!). Over about 6 weeks of working and debating with Ray, my initial arguments turned to questions, and my protestations turned to serious consideration of the claims of Christianity.
It was during this period, that Bob Dylan, via Leon's car radio, questioned my free, solitary lifestyle and demanded my honesty to myself:
How does it feel
To be on your own
With no direction home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
Interesting that just a few weeks later, some time around my 22nd birthday in October 1987, after deciding that I actually believed this Christianity stuff and genuinely prayed for the first time in my life – that England, became my 'direction home'.
As Jesus came into my life, I sensed an irresistible call back to my home country, to do something with my life. This land that I'd wanted nothing to do with, now had a pull on my life, not because it had something to give me, but because I felt I had something to give to it.
Amazing how I came to find dignity, value and identity as a child of God. No longer a complete unknown, but fully known. Known to the Father, and beginning to know myself.
Astounding that since that first moment of faith in Jesus, I never, ever felt lonely or alone again. Ever.
How does it feel now? Pretty darn good!
*After the father and son had dropped us off, I left my sister in Detroit city centre, where she was catching a bus into Canada.
I felt completely fearless – even more so than at the start of this trip, as described in Part Three. In fact, looking back, this was an extension of that initial trust that everything was going to be OK – trust that had been sown deep in my heart, first through those words of Jesus in Matthew, now strengthened through this old man's prayer.
Detroit was a big city and I knew I'd have to walk several miles to reach the start of a freeway to begin hitch-hiking. Having worked out which direction I needed to go, I just walked.
The city had a reputation for some pretty dangerous areas – I had no idea where these were or what they were called, but I wasn't concerned.
I walked mile after mile through street after straight residential street. After a few miles, I became aware that I hadn't seen a white face for a long time, not that I was in any way concerned by this observation.
Despite my obvious conspicuousness – a white stranger with a big red rucksack – I felt far from threatened. People sitting on the steps of their homes waved cheery 'hello's to me as I strode through their neighbourhood. It felt like community.
I'd walked about 8 miles, when a white couple suddenly pulled up in their flashy car, wound down the window and with a sense of urgency, warned me: "What are you doing here? This is a dangerous place. Let's give you a lift outta here!"
I tried to protest, "No, this a great area, people are really friendly", but at the same time wanted the lift, to get moving on.
It seemed that my fearlessness after the old man's prayer was founded. From somewhere deep in my memory, I vaguely recalled the words of the Psalm: "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil".
Perhaps Detroit's crime statistics confirmed people's fears of this area, but my experience at the time felt like a lesson in white people's prejudice and racism. As a white stranger in a black area, I was out-of-place, but had been warmly accepted.
New Jersey, new direction, new beginnings.
Dying autumn leaves dallied to the ground, making way for fresh growth on the New England trees. I knew that my old existence too had died, making way for brand new Life.
Walking through a New Jersey park under November blue skies, in 1987, at the end of a 3,000-mile hitch-hike from California…
Along the way I'd slept under the stars at the base of the Grand Canyon and trekked the 8 miles back up the following day. This was probably the last (and one of the more touristy) of many rich experiences of magical, wild America.
Almost at my destination: Newark Airport, to return to the UK, for the start of a new life.
I watched the trees succumbing to fall's firework colours. My life too was turning from shades of grey to… who knew what new colours. All I knew was that nothing was going to be the same again.
Casting my mind back to events of recent weeks, the words of The Mamas and The Papas' California Dreamin' sprang to mind.
All the leaves are brown
And the sky is gray.
I've been for a walk
On a winter's day.
I'd be safe and warm
if I was in LA
California dreamin' on such a winter's day.
Several of the song's themes had converged on my life:
– The autumn / winter background (although the skies weren't grey or even the US 'gray'!).
– Nostalgic thoughts of Los Angeles – which would always hold a special place in my heart.
– The reference to church and prayer…
After that initial first-ever-prayer-in-my-life in Portland, Oregon (see Part Five), I knew it was time to move on, to follow the call back to England. But first I was to stop again at my friend Nancy's house in East LA.
For one thing, I needed to apply to the British Consulate in Los Angeles for a temporary passport, since my full passport had been stolen – a fact that the Consulate seemed to disbelieve. Perhaps they were too used to British travellers selling their passports for a meal or a bag of weed. I was guilty of many crimes and misdemeanours, but not this one! However, they reluctantly agreed to issue me with the temporary passport, so I could travel back to the UK.
Nancy was living with her Aunt Eva, Uncle Danny and cousins Tony, Alfred and Terry. This welcoming Mexican-American family, for the second time on my travels round the States, embraced me as one of their own. In fact, I'd been treated to the family's hospitality on both sides of the Atlantic: in my teenage years, when my home was not a home, and Nancy was living in Lewes, her house would often be a haven (so I didn't have to cycle the 11 miles back to Buxted at the end of a beery night out), I'd play Manic Miner and Monopoly with her brother David in the morning, and her mother Martha would feed me. My first taste of chilli con carne was at this amazing house – I've been hooked ever since!
I'm forever indebted to Nancy's family, who showed me such kindness, showed me what real family is.
I don't know a great deal about Mexican-American East LA, but in a recent interview with The Big Issue, singer/artist Will I Am described his upbringing in "the ghettos of East LA, where young lives are ruined, still, by drugs, gangs and jail".
My impression, from my limited experience of the neighbourhood, was that of a safe, gracious, close-knit community, woven together by tangible love and genuine faith.
I tasted the delights of the local Catholic community, in the form of a Mexican charity breakfast that included a combination of eggs, chillies and rice – beats a full English any day, in my book!
So central was the local Catholic church, Saint Alphonsus, to this neighbourhood, that it held 5 services each Sunday, some in English, some in Spanish, to accommodate all its congregants. Here was a spiritual community, it seemed, with faith at its heart.
Although I'd taken my initial step into faith in Oregon, when I told God, "I think I believe in you and I'm going to give this Christianity a try!", I'd taken the step alone – I hadn't gone to church. In fact, I had never once willingly gone to church in my entire life.
But during the week or two that I stayed in East LA, I attended this Catholic church because I wanted to. The service was modern, upbeat, with guitars and gusto. I'd never experienced church like this before.
In the New Jersey park a few weeks later I reminisced on my time in LA, already with fondness, recalling what I thought were the words from California Dreamin':
Stopped in to a church I passed along the way.
Well I got down on my knees
And I began to pray.
The verse mirrored my actions in the LA church, where at the end of the service, I knelt in the pew and prayed at length, in silence. A sincere, more definite act of handing over my life to Jesus than the previous, vague prayer in Portland, Oregon. Another quiet but momentous spiritual milestone. It felt good – very good.
Was this, rather than that moment in Oregon, when I really gave my life to Jesus? Or was it eighteen months later, when I was baptised at Clarendon Church in Hove, and made a definite act of leaving behind some of my old ways? Or two years later when I was tangibly filled with the Holy Spirit's love and joy?
The truth is, our devotion to God – giving our lives to Jesus – tends to happen in stages. Being born again, like any labour, may happen in an instant or gradually, but all children grow in spurts. And whatever steps we think we take are initiated by our loving Father, who causes the growth.
Every step I've taken towards God has been because of his moving within me.
It's only while preparing this blog, that I discovered that that line in California Dreamin' is not in fact:
And I began to pray
And I pretend to pray
The real words are a million miles from the authenticity of my act of faith in the LA church. There was no pretence.
Even as an atheist I was genuine – I never pretended to pray. When, in my teens, I refused to participate in saying grace at my grandmother's house in Holland, she was somewhat shocked.
(Later, my grandmother was one of the first people I told about having come to faith. I received a beautiful, emotional letter in response about how she'd prayed for me with tears. I've treasured that letter to this day).
At primary school, when reciting the Lord's Prayer in assembly, I confess I did acquiesce, even though the words meant nothing to me. One morning, though, my friend Justin and I decided to make it more interesting. When we got to "Give us this day our daily bread", we continued "…and butter and Marmite and jam and cheese spread…etc"!
A snotty prefect noticed us 'talking' during the Lord's Prayer and we were sent to the headmaster's office, where we were reprimanded. It wasn't treated as a caneable offence, but I reckon it was one of those childhood incidents that helped to put me off 'religion', and even now I recoil against reciting the Lord's Prayer by rote (although I've come to love using it as a set of themes, a basis for bringing real, personal requests to my Father).
I recount that episode, partly to illustrate my genuineness as an atheist prior to believing, but also to observe the irony: although Justin and I made this amendment to the Lord's Prayer in fun, to liven up a boring assembly – this 'prayer' that got us into trouble, if genuine, would have been a perfectly commendable prayer to the Father who loves to hear our requests and thanks for the everyday things of life!
But back to the New Jersey park, reminiscing over California:
I'd be safe and warm
if I was in LA
To stay in the USA, perhaps California, would in many ways have been the safe option, my comfort zone. In ensuing years, people would sometimes ask me whether I would like to return to live in the States. But I was convinced of God's calling back to my home country.
Although I had no idea what the future held, I had a new-found, irresistible urge to put the things I'd been given to good use. The first two years back in England were somewhat rocky in places, as I worked out how to live my life as this new person. Some old habits died hard. But die they did and the course of my life was soon set on training to be a nurse. I also never lost sight of my roots or my affinity with the marginalised and downtrodden: it wasn't long before I found myself volunteering with homeless people in Eastbourne, while doing my nurse training. The call to homeless people continues to this day.
The initial return to England, to Lewes, and letting people know of my new faith, was interesting! I soon found out who my real friends were, as some seemed to distance themselves from me. But there was a funny and poignant comment that sticks in my mind. After word had got round that "Roger had got religious", my friend Scoby joked with me that he'd expected to see me with a shaven head and orange robe!
Eastern ideas had appealed along the way, but if I'd been searching for anything, I'd searched for truth and Jesus is what I'd found. Nothing else added up.
You don't have to agree with this, but I believe that people who search for healing or peace may embrace any number of religions or philosophies that provide merely superficial psychological balm. But that those who seek truth will find the one thing, the one person, who will transform them on the inside, bringing outward change like ever-expanding ripples. It's an inside out job.
Let me balance that bold statement by confessing that I'm not immune to doubts and struggles, and my healing after 25 years with Jesus has not finished.
And yet, in a sense, I've already arrived. He cried out on the cross – and in his grace he announces over me – "It is finished". In his perspective, it's a done deal. Job done.
Hence, in Jesus, we are set free from the endless striving for self-vindication demanded by the cruel taskmasters of karma and religion.
Do I still dream of California? Well, no – but East LA, Saint Alphonsus Church and the Tellez family forever live in my heart. And who knows, maybe I'll return for a visit one day, to this incredible community that supported my first faltering steps into my new spiritual family as a child of the Father. And maybe I'll stop into that church again and once again begin to pray…
Fast-forward with me to Spring 2011.
A few years ago there was an Allied Dunbar advert on telly, featuring Nat King Cole's Let's Face the Music and Dance (written by Irving Berlin). This post is as much about the advert as the song. If you don't remember the ad – and even if you do – I recommend watching it (again):
If you haven't clicked on the video above, the ad shows a middle-aged dad confronting his two teenage daughters after discovering a pregnancy test in the family bathroom. "Whose is that?! What do you think you're playing at? I thought we told you to be careful!" His challenge is met by protests of innocence from the girls.
"John, I think we're the ones who should have been careful", explains his wife tenderly.
John turns to the camera in a moment of Morecambe-esque surprise, breaking into song:
There may be trouble ahead
But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance
Let's face the music and dance
And the whole advert transforms into a musical comedy, reminiscent of Morecambe & Wise on several levels, and yet simultaneously somehow touching…
I remember, at the time the ad was on telly, thinking: "This is one of the GREATEST adverts EVER!" Both funny and moving. Little did I know how a few years later I would SO relate to this scenario!
We don't have teenage daughters, but we do have two older children. In April 2011, when we discovered Janine was expecting Hannah, our boys were 13 and 9. When we ventured out into married life some 14 years earlier, we both thought 3 kids would be good, but after having Jono then Greg, we put off and put off and put off, till we thought, "No, no more. Our two boys are enough."
Now here we were, in our 40s, with our older boys, having 'done' the baby years and happily left them behind. Been there, done that, got the bags under the eyes… Now suddenly expecting another little addition to the family! Truth is, we'd semi-jokingly toyed with the idea of another baby in recent times, so this wasn't a complete surprise!
Anyway, here we were, and the first thing I thought of, when we first realised our situation, was this advert! Watching it now fills my eyes with tears of emotion, while at the same time making me laugh. Mixed emotions at the advert – and mixed emotions at our initial realisation that we were expecting Hannah.
I'm glad that the greatest of comedians
Can bring me to the verge of despair,
And that a quadriplegic
Who paints with his teeth
And taps out prose
One letter at a time
Can remind me
Of the richness of comedy.
(From Gerard Kelly's poem Glad)
Children are of course a blessing. Always.
Children are a gift from the Lord (Psalm 127), i.e. although we make our plans to have – or avoid having – a baby, it's ultimately God who gives the gift of a child. Things don't always go to plan.
Some say children are 'on loan' to us parents.
Hannah is certainly a blessing. In lots of ways. Of course, just being herself as part of our family, is a blessing in its own right. A family sharing its lives together is how it's meant to be. Perhaps not the only way, but an important, tried and tested way for people to learn from each other, to grow together, to become secure, stable people. To demonstrate love to each other, to enjoy each other's company, reflecting the communal heart of the triune God.
That's not always how it works out, but that's my prayer for our 3 children, in spite of us parents' faults and weaknesses.
But also, the softening effect Hannah's had on our boys has been tremendous. Hannah's been good for them. Jono and Greg dote on their little sister, exercising great patience and compassion, when she pulls their hair or wrecks whatever they were doing. And I think they're better with each other as a result as well.
We have every reason to dance. We love all our 3 children. They bring us joy. Let's face the music and dance.
Hannah was meant to be. In God's eyes, she was always meant to be. Despite our (Janine's and my) delaying her arrival, she was always meant to be. Can we delay God's purposes? I think so.
More than one person has said to me, "Now your family is complete". Did they mean that a family is only complete with 3 children? Probably not – they probably meant that in our case this is how we were meant to be. And they were right.
Of course, at the same time as the joy and blessing of an anticipated new arrival…having done and left behind the baby years, the idea of facing the sleepless nights again, the endless nappy changes again, the continual chase to move dangers and ornaments out of a growing toddler's reach again…was daunting, to say the least. There will be challenges, perhaps even trouble, ahead. Mixed emotions.
What can you do but dance? What can you do but laugh and rejoice? And go with the flow. This is something God has done. This is something – someone – good that God has given!
Hannah has brought enormous joy and laughter into this family.
Children, of course, are the best dancers. Unhindered by inhibition. We've had some lovely times in our kitchen, when we've put on some music, and I've danced with Hannah. She stomps her feet and bends her knees – naturally, instinctively, always smiling. We've faced the music and danced together.
No wonder Jesus calls us to be like little children.
In true dance there's a letting go, a reckless abandon, a cry of "freedom!", and emergence of the true self.
In the film Billy Elliott, Billy tries to explain what it feels like when he's dancing:
"Once I get going, then I forget everything. And I sort of disappear. Like I feel a change in me whole body. Like there's fire in me body. I'm just there, flying. Like a bird. Like electricity."
Wow, wouldn't it be great to dance like that? Better still, to live like that!
Snoopy blissfully declared: "To dance is to live and to live is to dance" (Peanuts).
Dance may represent a wild, unbridled (but not blind) trust in God. Trust that he will give us all the grace we need in the years to come, as he has done till now.
Jesus announced to his followers that they would be able to 'trample on snakes and scorpions' (Luke 10). I'm sure he meant that they would have authority to defeat evil spirits and evil in general. But please indulge me while I stretch the meaning a little…
Suppose we lived as he meant us to, with reckless joy and child-like trust. Suppose we 'danced' through life? We would trample on troubles, stamp out stresses, dance over disaster…
To live is to dance.
There may be teardrops to shed
But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance
Let's face the music and dance
Let's face the music and dance…


text:
We analyze the mode properties of a laser with a Gaussian gain profile by using the beam propagation method. The resonance properties of the Petermann factor and the beam quality are shown to be related in the vicinity of degenerate cavity geometries. is unity for a confocal cavity, even under conditions with strong gain guiding, while is a maximum.
© 2004 Optical Society of AmericaFull Article | PDF Article
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Napoli's Danger Man Tipped as the Perfect Replacement for Alexis Sanchez
With Alexis Sanchez out of contract at the end of the season, Arsene Wenger will need to find a player who can deliver the same impact as the Chilean has since his move from Barcelona, should he choose to leave in the summer.
After a failed move to Manchester City on deadline day, it's no secret that Arsenal's star man is looking elsewhere to reignite his title-winning chances. With this being said, it has been reported that Arsene Wenger is looking to bring in Napoli and Belgium striker Dries Mertens, who was electrifying for the Ciucciarelli last season, scoring 34 goals in 45 games.
Having played on the wing until last October, Mertens was seen as a useful squad player, but not spectacular by any means. Approaching the 30 year-old milestone, it seemed the little Belgian would continue his role as a bit part player, alternating between Jose Callejon and Lorenzo Insigne in the wide positions.
However, an injury to Arkadiusz Milik, a £30m 2016 summer signing from Ajax, meant Maurizio Sarri had to experiment after Manolo Gabbiandi failed to adequately fill the centre forward role. This ultimately meant that Mertens was presented with the chance to reinvent himself, primarily as a centre forward.
Napoli finished last season in third behind champions Juventus and second place Roma. They looked a completely new team, with a new found dynamism up front between Lorenzo Insigne and Dries Mertens.
With a low centre of gravity, explosive pace and a thunderous strike, there aren't many other like-for-like replacements for Sanchez who are better than Mertens.
His versatility in terms of being able to play anywhere across the front line would present Arsene Wenger with a whole host of attacking options, similar to what Sanchez currently provides. In addition, Mertens registered 18 assists last season, meaning he can act as both a creative and a goalscoring presence alongside Alexandre Lacazette, as Wenger is unlikely to drop the Frenchman after breaking the club transfer record to sign him.
Only time will tell what the future holds for Alexis Sanchez, who is very likely to leave either in January or in the summer window. If this is the case, Arsenal will need to replace their star man, and Dries Mertens is one of the few players who can match the criteria similar to Sanchez.


text:
Infrared light lies between the visible and microwave portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Infrared light has a range of wavelengths, just like visible light has wavelengths that range from red light to violet. "Near infrared" light is closest in wavelength to visible light and "far infrared" is closer to the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. The range I am using is the Near infrared wave length in a modified sensor in a Canon 1Ds MK2. No lens filters are necessary or are conversions in Photoshop. this camera works in the 700nm frequency and 430Thz-300 Ghz. Visible light has a photo energy of about 3.3eV but this sensor is about 1.7eV which means if I set the ISO on the camera to 100 my meter would be exposing about 3 stops under exposed. Using the cameras metering is not accurate and I must bracket a lot and use a tripod. At high noon sunlight my exposure is around 1/4 second @ F16.0 The green spectrum is exposed to white and the blue spectrum goes to black. Time of day is very important as IR waves diminish quickly as the sun's angle drops lower. Over cast sky filter out the IR and the images are awful with no contrast at all. The higher the altitude the darker the sky will be.
I love working with this medium in digital because unlike IR film I get immediate feed back in the LCD and heat is not a big problem where as film was sensitive to heat and could ruin you image. Even touching the film with your fingers on the unexposed film could affect the image.
I hope you like these images. IR doesn't work for everything but in select cases it is spectacular.
Click on each image to see the full size.


text:
March 25 2010
Q: Why would U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan go out of their way to smear a journalist?
A: Because he told the truth about a night raid that killed Afghan civilians, including pregnant women.
We spoke with Afghanistan-based journalist Jerome Starkey about his reporting on special forces raids that killed civilians and NATOs surprising–and disappointing–response. This video contains disturbing images, and an even more disturbing story of violence, and an attempt to silence a truth-teller. It shows why its absolutely essential that we keep pushing back against the Pentagons message machine.
U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan are committing atrocities, lying, and getting away with it
March 22, 2010
Jerome Starkey recently reported for The Times of London about a night raid on Feb. 12 in which U.S. and Afghan gunmen opened fire on two pregnant women, a teenage girl and two local officials — an atrocity which NATO's Afghanistan headquarters then tried to cover up. Now, in a blistering indictment of both NATO and his own profession, Starkey writes for Nieman Watchdog that the international forces led by U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal are rarely called to account because most reporters are too dependent on access, security and the 'embed culture' to venture out and see what's happening for themselves.
Afghan Official Says U.S. Raiders Hid Killings
April 7 2010
The head of the Afghan Ministry of Interior investigation said publicly for the first time his investigators had accepted the testimony of family members of the victims of the Feb. 12 raid by U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) that the U.S. troops had dug bullets out of the bodies of their victims in an apparent effort to cover up the killings and that Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal had agreed with the team's conclusions. For the rest go HERE
Update April 9 2010
For what it's worth and that isn't much the US says sorry.
Nato paid the family compensation, which relatives said came to $30,000.
So their lives were worth a mere $30,000 dollars. A Pittance.


text:
I guess I can't be too surprised that boys are starting to jump on the makeup bandwagon. I mean we've been having all the fun to ourselves for this whole time - isn't it about time we share? Well, Tom Ford sure thinks so and this gorgeous, yet uber masculine man, admits that he even uses a little bit of the good stuff in his daily routine. Talk about dressing to impress!
A big believe in moisturizer - hating dry skin and imperfections - this genetically blessed man actually wears bronzer every day, contrary to beliefs that he tans. He also shamelessly dabs some concealer onto problematic facial areas, like so many ladies we know.
On one hand, I'm a little scared of all the male glamazons popping up on at the hotspots in town, but then again, a little bit of makeup never hurt anyone, right?
The new Tom Ford Men's Skincare line will range from 25$ to 150$ with most products in the 40-60$ range.
What do you ladies think? Would you buy this stuff for your special guy?
À Bientôt Mes Amours,
Kisti Belle


text:
Posted by Mark Williams | April 16, 2016
By Cole Quinnell
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text:
Laura Liedo
Laura Liedo is an illustrator based in Barcelona, Spain.
lauraliedo.com +
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A Maryland judge ruled that while lead paint may cause ADHD,
it couldn't be proved that lead paint caused a plaintiff's ADHD - causing
a verdict of $1.3 million to be overturned.
A $1.3 million law suit was overturned after the Maryland Court of Appeals concluded that an expert witness could not show lead paint causes ADHD.
The case of Starlena Stevenson v. Stanley Rochkind centers around Stevenson, who lived in a home owned by Rochkind as a child. She was tested for suspected lead poisoning as a toddler after her mother noticed she had been eating the flaking paint on the property. Years later, lead inspection would find the house to have toxic lead-based paint in more than 20 interior and exterior surfaces. Stevenson was later diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and went on to have problems in school despite being treated with Ritalin and Adderall.
Suit was filed against Rochkind in 2011 for violations of the Maryland Consumer Protection Act.
Lead expert testimony came from pediatrician Cecilia Hall-Carrington. Hall-Carrington filed a report stating "a reasonable degree of medical probability" that Stevenson experienced lead poisoning from living in Rochkind's property and that "her lead poisoning is a significant contributing factor" to Stevenson's ADHD.
Rochkind filed for Hall-Carrington's testimony to be excluded, but was denied. He argued that the scientific community has not come to a conclusion that lead paint exposure causes ADHD.
The jury found in favor of Stevenson - largely due to Hall-Carrington's testimony - and awarded her $1.3 million in economic and non-economic damages; however, that ruling has since been appealed.
According to Judge Sally Adkins, Hall-Carrrington's testimony did not prove that lead paint exposure was the cause of Stevenson's mental illnesses. Specifically, the Maryland Court of Appeals points to Maryland Rule 5-702(3) which states that a court must determine "whether a sufficient factual basis exists to support the expert testimony."
"The trial court abused its discretion in permitting her [Dr. Cecilia Hall-Carrington] to opine that lead exposure can cause ADHD generally and that lead caused Stevenson's ADHD specifically," Judge Sally Adkins said in a recent press release.
Scientists have debated as to whether lead paint exposure is a cause of ADHD; studies have pointed to elevated blood lead levels causing a range of behavioral problems. Still, none have pinpointed lead to be an exact cause of ADHD.
The court has remanded the case to Baltimore Circuit Court to review a new trial over damages.
To learn more about the case, visit Maryland State's Official Records. To learn more about lead paint safety, visit Zack Academy's lead homepage.


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Theoretical - Philosophical Physics : Space and Time into a single Continuum
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"Watch the Stars and From them Learn"-Albert Einstein Research @ http://www.youtube.com/sn1pe352 "Put your hand on a hot stove for a Minute, and it seems like an Hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an Hour, and it seems like a Minute. THAT'S RELATIVITY."-Albert Einstein "Apparently we are living in a Bose-Einstein Condensate in which all particles are immersed. If we turned it off, mass would vanish and everything would fly apart in a nanosecond," The first known philosopher Thales of Miletus taught that all things derive from a single first cause or Arche (Water) he also taught that the world is harmonious, and is intelligible to rational understanding I believe in Spinoza's God who reveals Itself in the orderly harmony of what exists"-Albert Einstein "Spinoza contended that everything that exists in Nature (i.e., everything in the Universe) is one Reality (substance) and there is only one set of rules governing the whole of the reality" This Paradigm is in line with James Clerk Maxwell's concept that the universe is existing in a dynamic medium that has many properties very much like those found in fluids such as water "According to the general theory of relativity space without aether is unthinkable." - A.Einstein, Sidelights on Relativity, 1922, page 23. "Fisk's model suggests that the magnetic field lines coming from the Sun look like a wild tornado" Michael Faraday (1791-1867) "I cannot conceive curved lines of force without the conditions of a physical existence in that intermediate space." James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) "...we cannot help thinking that in every place where we find these lines of force, some physical state or action must exist in sufficient energy to produce the actual phenomena." LOOK up at the sky. Almost everything out there is spinning around: stars, galaxies, planets, moons - they are all rotating. Yet physicists believe that the universe itself is not revolving. Why? There's countless numbers of physicist who think it is entirely possible that our universe is spinning on an axis. If these people are right, it could make understanding the universe a whole lot simpler. You could stop worrying about the big problems in cosmology: the origin of the big bang, the nature of dark energy and maybe dark matter too. You could get rid of the strange idea that the universe went through a superfast period of expansion known as inflation. You might even be able to halt the attempt to find a theory that marries together quantum theory and Einstein's general theory of relativity. Is it so hard to let the cosmos spin? Yes, it is, at least while general relativity rules the universe. In order to solve the hideously complex equations of general relativity - Einstein's theory of gravity - cosmologists assume that the universe is the same in every direction. Although general relativity can allow the universe to rotate, rotation requires an axis, and a cosmic axis of rotation would bestow a "special" direction on the universe - along the axis. Since there is no observational evidence that such a direction exists, the assumption has always been that the universe is not rotating. Mazur has a simple response to this: don't assume that general relativity has all the answers. Where do they get this heretical idea from? "From looking at where general relativity breaks down," Mazur says. General relativity provides an excellent description of what happens in the normal, day-to-day events in the universe, but it fails in "extreme" circumstances. Its equations are unable to tell us anything precise about events such as high-energy particle collisions, for instance, or the collapse of stars into black holes. Mazur and Chapline say, is in the way it allows time to break down. General relativity allows the formation of loops in time in certain circumstances. Sometimes, for instance, a kind of one-dimensional fault line in space-time known as a "cosmic string" can form. When such a string spins rapidly around an axis along its length, it creates a loop in time; travel round one of these "closed time-like curves" (CTCs) and you'll keep coming back to the same moment in time. Mazur and Chapline contend that, according to general relativity, the same thing can happen with a rotating black hole. The trouble is, quantum theory requires time to be "universal" - there should never be closed loops of time isolated from the time in the rest of the universe. That means quantum theory can't work everywhere in a universe governed by general relativity. relativity's view of space and time - what cosmologists call the vacuum - must be wrong. "There is but One universe, One Mind, One force, One substance. The substance, or body, of God is light. The substance of all 'created' things is light. Light is the living substance of Mind in action. Life is the pulsing, electro-magnetic oscillation of thinking mind."-Walter Russell
Added on Apr 6, 2013 by lonewolf
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Shifting Reality for Peace!
The current negotiation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is a struggle close to the heart of many. In such a heartfelt situation would you prefer your nemesis to say; "you can't have it" or "if it's true you can have it"? Hope springs eternal, but questions remain. The first statement implies its adamant speaker may have authority to promise the outcome of the second. However, authority may not be required "if it's true".
Most would agree, President Obama's insistence and Secretary of State Kerry's persistence, are the primary instigators of the current negotiating round. Although the prospects of peace are always tantalizing, the likelihood they will raise unrealistic hope and stir long held tension is a real and present danger. The proposed two state solution is an imposition on Israel's 65 year peace process and does not necessarily address the sensitivities of the people and regimes required to actually make and maintain peace. Beside settlements, recognition of Israel, Gaza and other significant issues, arguably the heart and soul of the conflict is reflected in the microcosm of Jerusalem's Temple Mount.
The complexity of Jerusalem's Temple Mount appears insurmountable because demand to possess the world's most contested rock will in all likelihood continue unabated until a peaceful solution emerges from it. The bedrock that is Mount Moriah stretches from the south at the base of the Kidron Valley floor to the Temple Mount at the head on which the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque are built. No amount of coercion can stem the tides of Jewish or Muslim demands for exclusive access to and possession of the Temple Mount on which many Jews and people of other faiths expect the Third Temple will be built.
Jews are a self-described "stiffnecked" people so it's no surprise their dogmatic attitude toward this location where the third Temple will be built is fervent, especially amongst the orthodox. Likewise, history demonstrates the frazzled fever pitch quickly rises to a pan Islamic crescendo each time Jews make a significant approach toward the Temple Mount. Peace between Israel and people living under the Palestinian Authority is therefore dependent on possession and occupation on this monolith.
The prospects of sharing The Rock are difficult because the traditional location associated with the Jewish Temple Holy of Holies is also the Dome of the Rock – a Muslim shrine built in 691 CE. Notwithstanding the importance of this location, by all accounts Jewish prayer must always be directed toward the Holy of Holies, the place on Mount Moriah where the Ark of the Covenant is thought to have once been located. If its location was once at the Dome of the Rock, Jews praying at the Temple Mount's Western Wall would be required by Orthodox Jewish law to face it, but most face the wall despite the Dome of the Rock being ±15°'s North of the wall. The practice is easily explained because the precise location for Holy of Holies is presently unknown and any place on Mount Moriah's bedrock monolith, which according to Jewish tradition is creation's Foundation Stone, could ultimately house it.
The speaker of the opening paragraph has no authority to deliver peace from The Temple Mount. However, the validity of the Western Wall prayer may be tested by the emergence of an even more authentic and ancient proposition (see: Deception and Glory) offering hope that a Jewish Temple on Mount Moriah can be realized in peace. If religious authorities agree that the new excavation at the recently discovered site in Jerusalem's City of David is the penultimate location for the Third Temple's altar then according to Orthodox Jewish law a sea-change will have occurred. This site, if true, could shift perspective, tradition and reality. The emergence of a peaceful solution from the epicenter of conflict is a characteristic of Jewish thinking and could be persuasive.
In such a scenario, it cannot be overlooked that the economic boost from tourism to the City of David may be sufficiently significant to motivate 70,000 of east Jerusalem's Jordanian Citizens, previously denied Israeli citizenship, to re-apply. Their efforts to obtain Israeli citizenship or permanent Jordanian/Israeli residency could seriously affect facts on the ground especially at the epicenter and may cause Prime Minister Netanyahu to respond. Such a demographic shift could finally put an end to the madness of division and cause an admission that the economic fundamentals of two states is suboptimal to Jerusalem's constituents and flawed from the outset.


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SOCHI, Russia -- Sitting at my first curling match Sunday night, trying to figure out what exactly was happening on the four sheets of ice below, I turned to the die-hard to my right and humbly asked for some help.
I understood the basics of the sport but wanted to know more. Why do the competitors brush so feverishly? How do they effortlessly glide along the ice? And what about those checkered Norwegian pants?
The guru had flown halfway around the world to be here. Used a few days of vacation time, in fact, to travel from California to Russia to watch one of his favorite sports. He was far from your stereotypical curling nut. He wasn't waving a flag. Didn't have an inflatable stone on his head. And certainly wasn't holding a cold beer. He was African-American. Bald. Stood about 6-foot-4 with a chiseled 250-pound frame. In his day job he was an All-Pro tight end for the San Francisco 49ers.
"Those pants?" Vernon Davis said. "Those pants are strong. Very strong. It would be pretty cool to have some of those."
So what was one of the NFL's biggest stars doing in Sochi watching curling, of all things? Five years ago one of the 49ers beat reporters approached Davis about trying his hand at the niche sport. The reporter was going to be writing about the event at the upcoming Vancouver Games and challenged the tight end to give it a shot. Davis, who is always up for new things, went to a curling club in San Jose, grabbed a stone and brush and loved it.
He paid his own way to Vancouver to follow the sport at the 2010 Games. Afterward, he picked up a pair of brushes of his own. He visited the club in San Jose and dabbled in the sport when his free time allowed. As the Sochi Games approached, USA Curling invited him to serve as the team's unofficial captain. Here, he's not only cheering on the U.S. team and spending time with its members, he's trying to spread the word about his favorite spectator sport.
"It's just the type of person I am," Davis said. "I'm open to try new things and different things. That's just the way life is supposed to be. I find it fascinating."
Even if his friends don't always understand. Just like they struggle to grasp his passion for fine art.
"They're always like, 'Vernon, what are you doing? What are you doing with curling? You serious about that sport?'" Davis said. "And I'm like, 'Yeah, I'm serious. Why wouldn't I be?' This is who I am. Everyone has something interesting about them and the way they operate. This is me."
Davis arrived in Sochi on Friday and given the smile on his still-jetlagged face Sunday night, he's having one heck of a time. On Saturday he watched the U.S.-Russia hockey game. "I didn't know [T.J.] Oshie before yesterday but I know him now," he said. On his strolls through Sochi and the Olympic Park, Davis said he has gotten a lot of stares. At a food court Sunday he said he was mobbed by some 30 Russians. On Friday night fans from Guatemala stopped him in the park and asked for a picture.
"They have no idea who I am," he said. "They just see a big African-American man, 6-foot-4, 250 pounds and they figure I must be somebody."
On Sunday night Davis and I watched the United States face off against Sweden. Earlier in the day, the Americans were eliminated from advancing to the semifinals following an 8-6 loss to Canada. Afterward, Davis met with U.S. skip John Shuster to get an idea of how he would approach a game that was essentially meaningless.
"I just wanted to know what was on his mind," Davis said. "I'm always open to hearing what these guys are thinking. I want to relate it to how I approach the game of football."
So Shuster told him.
"I said, 'You ever been knocked out before the last game of the season?'" Shuster said. "Which I know has been the case. I told him that you come out and play for pride, you play for your country, you play for your teammates."
With Sweden leading 3-0 in what I called the fourth inning ("It's actually an end," Davis said, "but you can call it an inning"), both teams had one stone in the circle with one throw remaining for the Americans.
"Watch this," Davis said. "They're going to hit the red stone into the yellow stone and knock it out."
He explained that they call this a peel. Or a crash. Whatever it was, when the stones all settled the U.S. was given two points.
"A safety," Davis said.
It was only the beginning of the football metaphors. The more we watched, the more Davis drew comparisons between his day job and his hobby. He told me the skip is like an offensive coordinator, trying to come up with the best play to score. He's also like a quarterback, directing his sweepers where to go. The sweepers? They're like receivers in a way. But rather than run a good route their job is to direct the stone on the perfect path.
"It's all about great execution," he said. "Just like football."
He told me about blockers, which a team sets up in front of its circle to protect stones that could potentially score points. When a Swedish stone managed to circumvent a U.S. blocker and ended up in the circle to score a point, Davis said, "Look at that. They just pulled the guard."
The more we watched, the more I noticed there was far more yelling than I expected. Not at the other team, mind you, but with the skip barking instructions to his sweepers. The Germans, playing two sheets over, were particularly boisterous.
"That's emotion," Davis said. "That's excitement about the game. I love that."
Davis said he grew up watching the Olympics and was particularly fond of gymnast Dominique Dawes and former NFL running back and bobsledder Herschel Walker. He added that he'd love to watch the team compete in Pyeongchang in 2018. When I asked if there is any chance he'd ever want to compete, he smiled.
"This sport right here, it's more about practice," he said. "Putting in that time."
And when his football days were over, would he be interested in putting in the time?
"Depends on the timing," he said. "It's possible."
And with that, it was time for Davis to leave. Not because the match was over (the U.S. would eventually lose 6-4) but because there were more interviews to do. More gospel for the NFL star to spread about this little-known sport.
"It's something that a lot of people don't know about," he said. "And I think that's pretty unique. Here I am an NFL player. There is no NFL player that promotes curling but me. And that's pretty cool. It shows I'm different and willing to open up and do something different."


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Happy Monday, hope you're all well!
Like many people I'm a huge fan of YouTube. It's my go to for checking out whether a certain product is worth buying, how to do a certain craft, or even just to see what people have been buying that month. There's a few channels I've been religiously watching lately, so I thought I'd share them with you. (Just click on their channel name)
I found Hermione's channel a few weeks ago and I've been binge watching her videos since. She's does DIY, organisation and home décor. I find her channel really inspiring, and I'm looking forward to trying some of her DIY's at some point. One to check out if you're into crafts and home décor on a budget!
I stumbled upon Vicky's channel by accident when I'd just left YouTube to run one day, and I'm so glad I did. Vicky mainly makes craft and budget store (such as Poundland etc) haul videos. I love that she can find little bits and bob's in the pound shop and turn them into beautiful home décor pieces, and I'm also super jealous of how she finds such good bargains. She's also a really lovely lady, so pop over and say hi!
If you want make up brand reviews which are honest, Steph's channel is for you. She's really down to earth, funny, and always gives her honest opinion on brands, which is great if you're like me and want to see what a product is like before you buy. She also does some fab tutorials, and her contour always looks flawless. Which I am very jealous of.
I found Laura's channel via Vicky's. Laura also films craft video's and craft hauls, which I love and again I get quite jealous that she manages to find such lovely things. I also really enjoy Laura's plan with me videos. They inspire me to do more with my own planner, and her spreads are so creative and pretty.
Jones's channel is so upbeat and refreshing. She's mainly a beauty based channel (she does vlog too so check those out) and films various hauls, testing videos, and beauty challenges. My favourites are the testing make up videos, especially the drugstore ones. It encourages me to buy brands I never would have thought of buying. She's also from Doncaster like me which is pretty cool.
That's my favourite YouTubers for this month, let me know who yours are in the comments, or if you have a YouTube channel leave the link and I'll check it out.
Have a great week guys.
Laura x


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It's ironic that succulents should look so much like coral. Far from living underwater in the cool and wet, these plants are at home in the hot and dry, places where for much of the year water is a memory. Crassula are from the eastern cape of South Africa; cotyledons from the drier parts of the African continent; kalanchoe are mostly from Madagascar; and the echeverias hail from the semi-desert regions of central America. But pile them all together and the sense of a coral reef is unmistakable, as was cleverly exploited by Phil Withers in his garden at Australian Garden Show in Sydney last year, a feature that won him the People's Choice Award. Here it is:
Given the reef illusion, entering the shade houses at the Succulent Garden nursery, in Glenorie in Sydney's north-west, is a visual leap into the ocean. There are silver rosettes sprouting improbably violet flowers, clumps of blue-green paddles edged in carmine, plants with twisted forms and scalloped edges, all in mad colours from lime to deep purple via blue and grey. All that is missing are the clown fish.
Surveying the scene is Grace Calvi, who, with her daughter-in-law Sue Hunt, has been growing and selling succulents for 14 years. Grace is responsible for the propagating and growing, Sue for the online sales and the procurement of new oddities for a collection that now numbers close on a thousand.
Here's Grace at work under the camphor laurels, potting up clumps of plants into old ricotta seives for clients who want to populate a large container instantly.
Grace grows tricky and rare plants, as well the many succulents that are easy to propagate. Her preferred propagation method is to use leaves from an established plant. The leaf simply has to be laid on free-draining potting mix and covered at its stem-end with the merest scattering of mix. The leaf will root and the roots will send up new plants, which can then be removed from the old leaf and potted up. The secret, explains Grace, is that the mix should be dry and the leaf should stay dry until the new plants have formed. Watering too early will cause the leaf to rot.
Plants can also be propagated from stem cuttings taken to reduce the overall size of the plant, to keep it tidy, or to harvest the incredible heads for floral arrangements (heads stuck into soaked florist oasis will last for ages.) Plants will also reproduce with no intervention from the gardener, creating pups that gradually build the size of the clump. The ease of propagation makes succulents great for sharing with friends, for landscaping in the garden, and for mixing in containers as varied as ceramic pots, woven baskets or carved-out slabs of wood as I wrote about last week. Once you have them in a pot, or in the garden, don't forget to water occasionally. While water-averse at birth, and highly resistant to drought and neglect, succulents do grow best when watered during their growing season. Take care though, they might look like underwater treasures, but they are easily drowned.
Grace and Sue open the gates of The Succulent Garden nursery on the fourth weekend of each month. Next open day is next weekend [Jan 31-Feb 1]. Bring a box and cash. Prices range from $5-$35. 20 Pinus Ave, Glenorie. www.thesucculentgarden.com.au. To visit at other times call Grace on 02 9652 1693. And when you're there take a close look at this agave with a mad violet trim. Unfortunately it's not for sale. Grace has had it for years, patiently waiting for it to produce some pups, but so far not a sausage. She doesn't know what it is, does anyone out there?


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the weather has been quite steady in cebu since the start of april and i mean sunny steady. yey! though the sun can be too unforgiving even at 9am. ;( well, it's a lot better getting greasy with too much sunblock rather than an umbrella in tow during your summer fun.
and yet again, here comes another post for summer!
Alta Cebu
alta cebu is located in cordova, cebu. just do a right turn a few meters away from the bridge, connecting mactan island and cordova. this resort is somewhat remote, situated in the middle of a residential area and a bit distant from the main road. no, drop the "bit" because frankly, it's not a walking distance. it's best if you have a car or hire one.
then, why escape here? to reiterate, it's remote. so it's a perfect place to get away from everything for a while and have yourself pampered with the resort's attentive staff. not to mention, their staff speak in perfect english with a hint of the american accent!
one major thing that makes alta cebu surpass the other resorts, is its food. it's superb! though, well compensated with an exuberant price.
don't let down your appetite with how the images lack the luster to entice. work your mind a little imagination!
alta cebu is a perfect place to unwind and forget the stress at work. commune with nature there. though their trees and shrubs need trimmings for it reminds me of a small forest. it might cross your mind that you're like red little riding hood going to her grandmother's house, especially if your room lines along the resort's perimeter fence.
Alta Cebu Resort
Cordova, Cebu
(6332) 513-2088
(6332) 513-2088


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Testimonial – Mr Varinder Kumar – A.M.B.C.S.
"I have been using Addison Tyre Centre for several years now. The company was recommended to me by my neighbour and also by my car service centre. They have provided me with excellent service with a very high standard. Their price, speed and customer service cannot be compared to. I have 2 cars, a Mitsubishi Shogun and also a Mazda 323F and have used Addison Tyre Centre for tyre's and also tracking."
I highly recommend them because:-
Trust is very important and safety comes first.
The services provided are very much recognized and appreciated.
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