58 revolutions around the sun

It’s a miracle baby

As times come and go, I realise I am a living miracle from the moment I took my first breath, with all the goodness and favour that has greeted me every waking day that has become the story of my life.

I am of all men greatly blessed, highly favoured, and extremely fortunate. Unexpectedly born at 26 and a half weeks at a time when it could have been decided I could not survive, even as the hospital in which I was born did not have the means to sustain me. I was taken to a hospital in another city about 25 miles away where I received the best care medicine could offer at the time.

An outlier to the convention

As a man of faith, every day whether acknowledged or not has had the hand of God sheltering and keeping me, through literally impossible situations, I can hardly count the innumerable blessings.

At another time, I was not meant to see my 44^th birthday, the prognosis gave me 5 weeks when the medical team in charge of my care made a diagnosis giving me the facts of the options before me. The good news depended on me tolerating the gruelling and debilitating chemotherapy for which I would be rewarded with more time.

Even medicine would prove me an outlier and the condition I had from studies at that time suggested the people did not last a decade. There were times I felt like a clock was ticking, it probably is the reason I hate the sound of ticking clocks. What was I learning from Captain James Hook in Peter Pan?

Living to live and thrive

Then, how have I measured myself against others thinking I will be limited by the experience of others when I was to live the life I am given to live and prosper. It is easy to live as if one were dying, yet there is a better story to live as one living and thriving regardless of situation or circumstance.

And here we are today, 58 revolutions around the sun, nothing I could have predicted or expected, it is all the grace of God, the prayers of many, the unstinting support of some, and the amazing love of Brian who plants a smile and grin that never wanes on my face.

I am full of gratitude to see this day and I believe there are many more amazing celebrations to come. In the stories I will write I cannot even begin to imagine the form or frame of words to narrate the miracles that astound as each day passes into milestones for which the praises to God will fill the mouths of many who love goodness, happiness, success, and joy.

This is my happy birthday.

Thought Picnic: I keep keeping on

Where we are and have been

Sometimes, I have to ask myself, what the image of success is in my own life and when looking around me. In the things I have done before, I have been quite successful, so the concept is not an alien one, there are so many references to suggest that favour and good fortune have been present in many areas of personal endeavour.

Then I think of times when it appears things are not essentially working in my favour and my attitude towards such situations. Generally, my outlook is positive, and the way I present is usually upbeat, yet all appearances could sometimes mask inner turmoil, the struggle to assert oneself, along with an apparent failing in confidence.

The mission is to believe always

At this point, I need to believe in myself and recognise those who believe in me, these things do happen and on speaking to one of my senior managers recently, he assured me that it happens to the best of us, we just need to keep believing in ourselves, despite the unfavourable, unfortunate, or frustrating prevailing circumstances.

To press a point about certain ideas I have, the ghost of a mentor was resurrected for me to reconsider certain aims, it just so happened that I also had a contrary retort from the same mentor when I was at crossroads, some 12 years ago. Nothing is entirely sacred or sacrosanct despite the respect accorded our mutual mentor.

I keep keeping on

Indeed, I want it all to go away, even a crazy thought or two has tried to reach into my mind that I have refused to entertain. I try not to dwell on aspects where it seems I have failed myself, lost my discipline and yield to distractions that convey me to harmful conduct. I do wonder if I have prayed hard enough or done everything I need to do, many of those things I probably do not at all want to do if I had any other option.

I count the many blessings that keep me telling amazing stories and the reality that there are phases in life, some long and others short, some with obvious cause and others not quite so obvious, altogether impactful in forming character, resilience, purpose, and direction. I may be down, but I will never be out until there is no breath, heartbeat, or hope to keep me going. That is a promise here and from on high.

There are things to do and places to go! [Bible Gateway - Romans 8:14 (The Message)]

Editorial: Ninth of May 2011

The hills heard the jive of Osama’s footsteps

Long ago, the hills were alive with the sound of bombing but all that carnage never once got near him, he escaped from that hideout as a large bounty was placed on his head.

Time and again we heard as a refrain, how shall we solve a problem like Osama we cannot say what it took to climb every mountain, search high and low, follow every highway and every path you know.

We imagined he was high on a hill in a lonely goatherd but when he was found every single brand name of interest showed up in a room. Cola, the inadvertent pastime of Spanish pajero, wild oats, Vaseline, milk, conjugated posteriors of popular football and ganja make up a list that was bordering on unlawful and criminal.

The realisation dawning when the slug hit, when the head split and when we were feeling had, we simply remembered his favourite things and then we don’t feel so mad.

Dreams and things all up on a tight rope

I have not been to a circus in a long time and when I’ve had the opportunity to I have avoided the secluded kiosk of Madam Safira who was a compendium of futures you will believe if you crossed her palm with a coin that once had huge value.

Close to the hedge, the well-oiled castors just made you wish she was close to a steep incline that brought her bets on your life to a terminal end.

It would appear Clive Capital, the largest commodity hedge fund closed their palms to Madam Safira as her abode careered precipitously down to the rocks and between palms $400 million fell through the cracks because the oil price went south.

One has never been sure if the one-armed banditry of hedge funds who are no good at making things but are geniuses at making things up are better than Madam Safira at making dreams up, in all cases, one is well advised.

Impossible dreams of extreme privacy

As dreams go, the holy book tells a story of an albeit strange dream had by a king who knew he had this recurrent nightmare but refused to tell his dream and expected someone to both remember the dream and interpret it too.

Enter Daniel a gifted seer whose ability just transcended anything possible it was out of this realm at least that is what we thought when the judges in the UK put super-injunctions on the press.

The analogy is however apt, imagine having to interpret a dream you have not been told and compare that to someone taking an injunction out on the publication of a story and then an injunction on preventing information of that injunction being made public.

One can only wonder to what purpose as the same persons would willingly make public their saintly acts but seek the cloak of extreme privacy in terms of their sinful deeds.

We are only entitled to a single story of good behaviour and amazing role models, people without fault or blemish that they be demigods at worst and because they can pay for it we are none the wiser that they are also flesh and blood doing the unspeakable, the unmentionable, the reprehensible and the atrocious – but we cannot judge until Twitter tosses up the whole travesty and the law is left looking like an ass, once again.

Acknowledgements

Inspirations for this editorial are drawn from the lyrics of the Sound of Music in expressing a view about Osama bin Laden’s favourite brands courtesy of the Rogers and Hammerstein Organisation that owns the rights, from news that a commodity hedge fund lost $400m as reported by the Financial Times and the revelation that a Twitter user had revealed the murky details of super-injunctions as reported by the BBC.

The second chapter of the book of Daniel tells of the dream of king Nebuchadenezzar.