Contempt from the Ringside Seat

The Ringside Seat

Imagine having a ringside seat at a boxing match, not because you paid good money for it, but because you share such a close relationship with the boxer that no other person would be allowed to take that seat, even when you were not present to sit in it.

The person you are supporting is the challenger for a title, and through the rounds they are pummelled and battered. Every round portends a possible knockout, yet the challenger endures. They keep going, taking the blows but never being beaten, and the points tallied at the end of each round add up to hand the challenger the victory and the belt.

Then, in your telling of that encounter, you speak of bloodshot eyes, of mouth guards being knocked out, and of the uselessness of the challenger, insisting that you could put up a better fight and walk away unscathed. That becomes the report you file, neglecting the simple fact that your person was the victor.

Telling My Story

In the story of my life, about which I have written quite extensively, there are many strands of adversity and failure; but the successes and triumphs bookmark the telling of this story, so that it would seem strange to major in the misfortunes.

One narrative could have been given in this light. Akin has had such a blessed life. I have watched situations of failure, joblessness, two debilitating bouts of cancer, and challenges that seemed insurmountable.

And yet you would not look at him and think he had been touched by anything but the good fortune of scaling through life on sheer luck and almost undeserved providence. What an inspiring story he has, should he ever wish to talk about it.

Rather, of all that could have been said, what got relayed back to me was a mis-telling of my story: a conflation of events, suffused with half-truths, then given the veneer of a wastrel and ne'er-do-well, constantly down on his luck because of his irresponsibility.

There is a useful distinction to be drawn here between interpretation and misrepresentation. Two honest witnesses may weight the same night differently, one dwelling on the punishment absorbed, another on the resilience shown; but neither is entitled to erase the result. Perspective explains emphasis; it does not license fabrication.

There is every possibility, like the person invited to the ringside seat, to tell a different tale with the outlook of a curmudgeon incapable of seeing the good in anything. We own the filters of our perspectives on things.

The Four Pillars

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

The architecture of trust, whereby your ringside supporter reports your story in the best light possible, the truth and not embellishment, the honest and frank assessment of what was observed, rests on four pillars: care, concern, consideration, and confidence. One could define those four Cs in the terms that follow:

Care: the baseline emotional investment a person has in your wellbeing.

Concern: the active protective instinct they feel regarding your vulnerability.

Consideration: the cognitive foresight to understand how their future actions might actually affect you.

Confidence: the secure container that the first three pillars create.

Blog: Thought Picnic: Confidences, Not Secrets

The Honest Retelling

An honest retelling, then, is one the subject can recognise, even when it is unflattering. You may wince at a true account, but you will not fail to find yourself in it. When the portrait no longer resembles the sitter, the fault lies with the painter.

Honesty also requires proportion. To recount the joblessness, the two debilitating bouts of cancer, and the seemingly insurmountable challenges, and yet omit that I am still here, still working, still writing, still standing, is not honesty; it is selective editing masquerading as candour.

When to Speak

With that in mind, it is difficult to understand how reality and retelling could diverge so far, so hurtfully, and so much to another's discredit, for reasons best known to the teller. When a portrait is this false, one feels there is little option but to confront it and to challenge the narrative set loose about you.

Invariably, if you have nothing good to say about someone, you are not obliged to say anything at all out of a need for conversation, small talk, spite, malice, or anything else. Your silence does not have to be bought; it is a quality of self-control to bridle your tongue.

Brian’s Point of View: Words Can Break Something We Thought Was Safe

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

How AI Helped Me Update My Ancient Blog Template

Modernising My Blog Template

This idea had been on my mind for a few days. I was encouraged to go ahead with it after I read that the CTO of Microsoft Azure, Mark Russinovich, had reviewed some assembler code he wrote for the Apple II 6502 processor in 1986 using Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 AI model. It had read, analysed, and then found bugs in the code. [ZDNet: AI is getting scary good at finding hidden software bugs - even in decades-old code]

That was enough for me to consider reviewing the Google Blogger template that serves my blog. Though I started my blog in 2003, I started publishing on Google Blogger around 2007 and migrated the content from an old hosting service between 2010 and 2012.

Blog - Brick by heavy brick (August 2010)

The Analysis Process

I grabbed the HTML code with all its CSS yesterday and asked Anthropic's Claude Sonnet 4.6 to examine, analyse, and explain it before recommending how to update and optimise the code.

The codebase was 2,307 lines with 94,125 characters. It identified the time frame in which the template was created, from the code patterns of that era, breaking down the elements into ten sections and identifying what function each performed. It then analysed the different versions of HTML used, and I had code from HTML1 to HTML4 littered throughout the template.

Key Improvements Implemented

About ten minutes later, it addressed thirteen elements as shown below:

Suggested Changes to my Google Blogger Template

Then I asked it to integrate all the suggested changes into a comprehensive new code to use as my updated template:

1. Remove duplicate legacy _gaq analytics block at the bottom
2. Remove gtag('config', 'UA-7677511-4') from GA4 block
3. Remove Alexa verification tag
4. Remove IE9 compatibility tag
5. Update Twitter embed format
6. Fix HTTP email icon to HTTPS
7. Make description meta tag dynamic
8. Add Open Graph and Twitter Card meta tags
9. Update Google Custom Search script
10. Remove obsolete Google Stars code
11. Remove obsolete CSS vendor prefixes (the -moz-border-radius, -webkit-, -goog-ms- prefixes)
12. Remove revisit-after and keywords meta tags
13. Update language translation widget to Google Translate Widget

The Result

With comments inserted to show where changes were made, I ended up with 2,272 lines and 87,382 characters. I have 1,000,000 points allocated for my monthly subscription to Poe.com, and I was charged extra points to process this activity. The initial analysis cost $0.17 (5,765 points), the integration was $0.65 (21,721 points), and the final user interface and experience element was $0.17 (5,765 points), totalling $0.99 (33,251 points).

Fine-Tuning the Translation Widget

What I was given from the Google Translate Widget was a list of all languages without the possibility of scrolling to the right after languages beginning with the letter M. I asked the AI model to review the code, first explaining the situation and posing the question: "Is there a way to select a language by typing in the first letter and then being given a list to select from?"

This was fixed by adding the option to start typing letters from a language name; the user is then presented with a list of languages to translate to.

Safety and Verification

Obviously, as a precaution (because I have read about AI causing problems like wiping out databases and such like), I made a backup of the template before I started anything, and I have made copies over time to ensure I can revert to status quo ante.

The Google Blogger Theme customisation tool also has a preview function. Critically, I wanted to retain the look and feel of my blog, regardless of the changes made. This meant I could check that everything was in the right place before committing to changing the template.

Conclusion

I suppose the time and cost that using AI has saved in updating the template is the key point here. This was all done within 30 minutes for $0.99 (£0.74), which is remarkable.

There is increasing trust in using AI models and tools, but you must always verify, check, and reverify before using AI-reviewed code in any environment, whether personal, experimental, or production.

A Google NotebookLM AI Audio Overview Discussion of this blog

The blessing of loving what you do

Why do you like your job?

Having heard from many others, I can only count myself blessed to enjoy what I do and my job. The responsibilities involved can be challenging and sometimes frustrating. Managerial levels, especially those in project management who impose demands for deliverables that lack any semblance of being feasible considering resources, time, and cost, are particularly difficult.

Clearly, one must be assertive enough in their area of expertise to offer a genuine perspective on what is achievable within the constraints provided. I recognised this blessing more profoundly when people asked me if I liked my job. It revealed more about how they felt about their own positions than about any genuine curiosity regarding my situation.

The fear of change

I hate to admit that it felt more like searching for kindred spirits in the shared misery of work life, which is quite sad. Fortunately, I found the courage to walk away from a job that had lost its enjoyment, excitement, and sense of progress. 

This situation often arises from how one is managed; if line managers view you as a human being, giving respect, courtesy, dignity, and trust, while also recognising your contributions, it can significantly affect your experience. 

Too often, we are constrained by the fear of leaving the comfort of the familiar for the uncertainties of the unknown. However, it has been in those moments that I have left the comfort of a stable job with a regular salary and no clear prospects for advancement or promotion, that I have stepped into more exciting and rewarding roles and opportunities.

Take that vital step

You must step out and away to step into something better. A brief discomfort might herald better things to come. Naturally, one must have faith in oneself and in the experiences acquired, which may be underappreciated where you currently are, but seen as invaluable elsewhere.

What you do not want is for the transient notion of job security to rob you of career autonomy and erode your ambition, leading to a loss of confidence in your marketability.

Many of us should explore better ways to market our skills in varied environments. A curriculum vitae needs enhancement to catch the eyes of recruiters beyond a mundane presentation.

Trust your capable self

When it ceases to be enjoyable, do not waste time hoping it will improve if the personnel, purpose, or project has not changed. Reinventing oneself can be an appealing and distinguishing factor in the job market; moreover, no knowledge or experience is ever truly wasted. This may necessitate a period of inactivity or a change of surroundings.

This is why I believe that, regardless of what you undertake, its value or impact may not be immediately apparent, but your own progress is something others elsewhere might appreciate.

Reassess your options; you have likely exhausted the potential for growth within your current engagement and need new fertile ground of people, projects, and purposes to write another wonderful chapter in your career and life.

Finally, you are the principal participant in the story of your life, do not let another make you a victim of your circumstances, think of number one and take care of number one first, learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all.

Home as you left it

Strewn yet hewn

When I returned home late in the night a week ago, it never occurred to me how if anyone had seen a dog in the window of my apartment over the weekend, they could come back on my return, point to the dog and ask how much it was.

In fact, I could have left my bathroom scales in my wine rack (I did not do that, someone else did) and expected to still find it there or carelessly left the fridge door open and met it undefeated by gravity or the rotational forces of the earth in the same position I had in my forgetfulness abandoned things.

That lack of trepidation as to the condition of my home that always seemed to leave me a total stranger in my own home after any sojourn away, was bliss. None of the disorderliness which to the mind of another was their order, or apparent disarray was due to poltergeist activity, I simply had a trusted house sitter.

Behold an earthquake

Trusted is being generous to a fault, because except for the entirely immovable things, everything moved, changed places, or just disappeared. The lack of care for the very basic things even though to his thinking he was keeping the place tidy, robbed me too many times of the enjoyment of home, yet overwhelmed to a masochist trait, I submitted myself to more abuse.

However, after a 16-hour journey back from Cape Town, still barely at 60% of my strength, I stepped into my home and though he was present, I found myself running the vacuum cleaner through my apartment before I even took my jacket off. When I opened the fridge, a hurricane had swept through it with pieces anywhere but where they should be.

That I was still finding things out of place five months later is testament to his genius that has a madness to its method, but the day after I returned, I asked him to give me back the keys to my apartment and I bought myself the unimaginable treasure of space, independence, and wallowing in the mess of my own making. I could live with that.

Peace with my pieces

The next time we saw each other, it was at a waving distance attending a funeral, I bear no animosity toward him, I consider him a friend, even if he thinks otherwise. It was a necessary intervention, rescuing myself from the throes of the unmentionable trying to articulate the indescribable.

Just to have your home unspoiled and be able to suggest the best price for the dog in the window the stranger saw the other day and get a good exchange without rummaging through the depths of Hades for the upper set of your false teeth and the missing tail of the dog. You do not want to know what I still cannot find in my own home.

John Coll: Helpless against a crooked executor

Our mortal powerlessness

Yesterday marked a decade since the passing of my friend and mentor John Coll. As a blogger, I would normally have written something to commemorate and memorialise the day. The blog I wrote last year was meant for yesterday, I was a year off.

Blog - John Coll: Friend, Mentor, Gentleman – January 2015

Blog - John Coll: Calling on Herbert Dzinotyiweyi to fulfil his wishes – December 2013

Much as I want to reflect on our friendship, there are issues of understanding trust and the powerlessness of keeping that trust when you are no longer in the picture.

It brings to mind when Queen Elizabeth II gave her Christmas message desiring that the Duchess of Cornwall as the spouse of the Prince of Wales become the Queen Consort when he assumes the throne. That wish lasted until the coronation of King Charles III when he as king regnant decided his consort would be crowned Queen.

The clear message there is that regardless of the desires of the much-loved Queen, once she joined her ancestors, the powerful effect of her determination had gone with her passing. There is only one monarch in a kingdom and this time, it was Charles III, we had left the Second Elizabethan era for the new Carolean age from the 8th of September 2022.

The danger of a sole executor

In the affairs of life, we exercise both choice and control to varying extents, our presence enables us to order, arrange, and challenge situations to align with our liking and expectations. However, in our passing, where we cannot exercise control or authority, we rely on trusted persons to fulfil our wills, testaments and bequeaths.

There is a clear basis for an executor of an estate and there is law and precept that governs that responsibility, yet it can be abused. John chose the ‘trusted’ financial manager of his company to execute his will, whether it would have been prudent to distribute that responsibility seeing that John had been an employer of labour and skill for decades is another thing.

When John passed on, the primary elements of his will, such as his funeral and the disposal of his estate were followed through and seemingly completed quite promptly. The other part of his will which included bequests to 10 individuals, mostly outside the UK did not get fulfilment.

Once the executor had seen the largesse of the estate the trust reposed in him evaporated into avarice and over years, he schemed to transfer the full value of the estate after probate of about £780,000 to himself. He might have siphoned it out of the country or gambled it away, but he also had another plan, for he had citizenship of Zimbabwe and naturalisation in the UK.

I was onto him in 2019 when I learnt that most beneficiaries of John’s will had not been informed, and those who should have known were kept from prying because the executor feigned complexity of managing the estate and the required taxes.

He escaped accountability and justice

As I was not a beneficiary, I could only inform and instigate in the hope that John’s wishes would be fulfilled, and accountability is looked for as pertains to the fiduciary duty of an executor. Sadly, the police mishandled the situation and allowed the executor a window of opportunity to escape justice leaving the beneficiaries bilked of consequential resources that could have been impactful on their lives if John’s wishes had been conducted.

The lesson here is not only in choosing a trusted lieutenant or friend to execute your estate, especially in the absence of close relations to do the same but in distributing that responsibility so that the executors can hold each other accountable and true to the requirements of the testator.

Whether John had any insight into the character or integrity of his executor, one cannot tell, but with hindsight, the executor was anything but trustworthy. Mortal man is at a loss, for a will has no enforcement until the person is confirmed dead and the same person is powerless to ensure that their will is totally implemented according to the spirit and the letter of will.

A thought on accountable executors

As a man of faith, one of the reasons why Jesus Christ had to rise again from the dead was that the will for man to have eternal life and a relationship with God came into force with His death and the shedding of His blood for our sins. He rose again to ensure his testament was followed completely, that in accepting His sacrifice on the cross and declaring Him Lord, He confers the same sonship He has with God the Father on us too.

Imagine if, at the implementation of a will, the testator had the means to ensure every jot and title of their will was fully done without any challenge to the executor or resorting to the courts to redefine or alter your intention, purpose, and desire. Trust is a fleeting commodity, when it comes to executing a will, please ensure you have built extensive accountability into the process.

It is not John’s fault that things turned out this way, I never had reason to question either his instinct or his judgment when he was alive, people change and when it comes to money and worse still, the love of money, it is the root of all evil, the unconscionable evil that consumed Herbert Dzinotyiweyi.

It is well with my soul

"My Help" - Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, with lyrics

Knowing the Lord who keeps me

As I saw in the First of January this year from the fellowship of a small church in South Manchester, there is much I could not have planned for in 2024, except for having hope and expectations.

It has been quite an eventful year, and I am reminded of where to place my focus, not in men, not on events, or the vicissitudes of life that serve to both tempt and distract. I woke up one morning some time ago (that was literally four years ago), and I had to find the verse in the Bible that said, “The Lord who keeps me, neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Ps 121:4

Blog - He shall preserve my soul, even forevermore

It was in Psalm 121 of which a rather melodious song derived from the meaningful verses gives a sense that where all seems to go awry around us, there is a place to find all you need to know that when others are losing their heads in despair, despondency, dispute, disease, defeat, death or much worse, you will neither lose your way nor sway.

Beyond the human to the spiritual

I will be the first to say when I faced the prospect of malignant prostate cancer, I did not understand what was happening to me. Sometimes, a thought raced through my mind like I was facing the looming abyss of destruction, a sudden end over which I had become a victim of circumstances beyond my control.

I entered my closet, the confines of my humble abode. I began to playback messages of hope and encouragement, of life and living, of stories and testimonies, of triumph and victory. No, I was not hopeless, the advantages of medical science notwithstanding, the battle had to be won first in between my ears before I knew I could win elsewhere.

Trust in the Lord, always

I feel the same about today for there was another expectation in the human realm that had been dashed by some of the amazing mysteries of how humanity chooses the worse over the better. It is not a new thing. Most of the Israelites of the Bible in Exodus while quite desirous of being freed from Egyptian bondage ended up perishing in the desert because they focused on worsening circumstances over extraordinarily better assurances.

You learn with time that the earth is not on a trajectory to Paradise, it is coming to an end by nature and anthropomorphic abuse, we look to something new, something different, and more exciting than the natural mind can fathom. You are left with one thing to ponder, where is your faith, your assurance, your expectation, and your hope?

In that, I have the fullest confidence that this lies way beyond the reach of the travails of humanity, I meditate in the life-giving sustenance of words inspired by God to spew forth from the lips of men, on which to meditate and find calm in the storms of life, wherefore, I can say without dissimulation, I shall not be moved.

Read, recite, meditate

Psalms 121:1-8 KJV

(1) A Song of degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

(2) My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth.

(3) He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber.

(4) Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

(5) The LORD is thy keeper: the LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand.

(6) The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.

(7) The LORD shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul.

(8) The LORD shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Bible Hub: Psalm 121 (Parallel versions)

Thought Picnic: Choose your travel companions carefully

Sharing with the caring

Choose your travel companions carefully, they are usually rarely blood-related but the bonding that grows between you gives a daring sense of adventure that you won’t wish for another to share the experience.

The journeys you venture on in life come with perils and triumphs, you must think about who would support and succour you first in the wilderness and long before you get to the city comforts that mask the true nature of your company.

Know the wolf cries

Fairweather friends are many, feigning interest, love, and engagement, sometimes our discernment and the ability to be a judge of character deserts us and in the process, we face unexpected betrayal and hurt. To know the signs early is to be blessed beyond measure.

When you are following someone, do not follow them too close so that you cannot cut yourself loose when they are determined to end up in a ditch. You do not have to be collateral out of blind loyalty. Fall because of your misstep rather than out of using another’s eyes.

Know the person indeed

If your friends are your relations, you are probably lucky, in every case. judge a person on their own character and integrity and avoid allowing the corporate trust in an environment of allegiances like a place of worship, business, or a club to vouch for your association. Many have had their fingers burnt in being taken advantage of by malevolent people covered by community settings.

Be wary of sycophancy or bias, take the compliments and test the sincerity of anything that attempts to puff you up, between friends, honesty, frankness, openness, and bluntness does crucially matter. You need to know who would pull you out of the fire. They will always stand with you yet will not let you get away with bad behaviour. We all need accountability partners, cherish them with love, honour and respect.

Choose your travel companions wisely, that can be the difference between getting to your destination or perishing along the way.

Thought Picnic: My strength in faith over adversity

And so I learnt

It was information I was already privy to due to indiscretions and the mismanagement of information from departments first and then blamed on computer systems. I suppose, unlike my first encounter with this experience, I was not going to approach it with denial and allow it to take hold to the point of a life-threatening emergency.

At the same time, I contacted the hospital to remonstrate the unfortunate abuse of process, someone should have been proofreading and assessing any communication before the send button was pressed.

I got an apologetic call from the doctor with the offer to have the said indication redacted. Well, how helpful is erasing information you have already read when you are not living in the reality of a “Men In Black” movie?

I know the truth

In any case, I took the information with the view that the battles ahead have been won for me, and my trust in Him will make a way. I will call those things that are not as though they were, rather than call the things that are as if they were not. [BibleHub: Romans 4:17]

This is usually the confusion of faith we need to unlearn, relearn, understand and reaffirm. In matters of life and death, you want to know who and what you believe and be sure that you are believing right.

On the cross of Calvary, He bore our sin and sins. Still, before He was nailed to the cross of agonising death at the hands of the Roman state, He took stripes, a relentless whipping that tore strips of flesh off his body that according to Scripture and observation, he was impossible to behold for the wounds on him. Those wounds represent every manner of disease and illness that visits humankind in its mildness and extremity. [Bible Gateway: Isaiah 53:1-5 (NLT)]

I know I’m healed

Jesus Christ was spoken of by the prophets, and when He came to the world, “He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.” Matthew 8:16. This fulfilled the word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah, who said, “He took our sicknesses and removed our diseases.” (NLT) [BibleHub: Matthew 8:17] Healing is present and available as it was then and it will be until He returns, I live in the truth of what Jesus did for me.

That is why I am not afraid but emboldened to face the hours, the days, the weeks, the months, and the years ahead. I will constantly be encouraged by the Word of God, and by the anointed preaching of the Word on faith, healing, living, and prospering in my soul and body.

I will frame my own world by the Word of God [Hebrew 11:3]. This is His will for me, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” (KJV) [BibleHub: 3 John 2]

Homeless, not hopeless

Among us all

There are moments that you observe as you walk around your city that present you with a time to reflect on the many blessings that greet us each passing day.

The grip of adversity can rob you of every kind of agency, the belief in yourself, the appreciation of human kindness, the facility for hope, and even a desire to live.

Hurdled in corners all around my city are the homeless and the destitute whose many stories are seen through just their immediate deprivation. There is more to them than what we see. Yet, there is no magic wand to wave with either determination or the almost limp-wristed suave of a sprite from the other world to change things.

Just a little

The burden of the issue is immense, you want to walk away and pretend certain realities are too great to countenance, but I saw a man in distress, he was crying and that touched me so deeply, that I turned and went to him to ask what the problem was.

He had a catalogue of woe to drown fish in its own habitat and I asked him to give me 15 minutes, he had probably heard that too many times to care about the truth of good intentions until I returned just about 20 minutes later having been distracted by an unfortunate situation.

His surprise at seeing me again, yes, I made a promise to a total stranger, but it was not just about him trusting me but a demonstration of knowing that my own words must count for something to myself. It is hence important not to vow rashly, for in not meeting it, your words begin to lose significance to you first and then to others.

More in him

In our exchanges, I found that he was going to be 50 and about to be a grandfather, you just never know if you do not engage, interact with, and deign to see another regardless of stature. One little thing can restore hope, give a sense that there is a tomorrow and help appreciate that no man is or remains an island.

He said he would lie down and say a prayer for me, I cannot remember the number of times we hugged, but that little moment of turning tears into smiles should be the broader story of our shared humanity.

I believe in angels, and many have been sent my way, in the depths of despair there is strength that tells you a better story is just being written.

The arm of flesh will fail you

"Stand Up Stand Up For Jesus" by 250 Voice Mass Choir

I do not remember the tune

While in church on Sunday, I was in a conversation where I saw familiar words of hymns I had sung from the Songs of Praise hymn book that was used in my Methodist-founded secondary school. It was first published in 1925, with updated editions thereafter.

However, it was quite discomfiting for one to know the words of a hymn only for the organist to play a rather unfamiliar tune. The nostalgic moment of recognition and being taken back in time to life probably only slightly more innocent than now, is lost in trying to find your place and rhythm again.

Hear me sing with aplomb

Then with the Offertory hymn, I, with full-throated voice, swayed in syncopation and rhythmic candour, I knew the words and the organist played the tune. I half wanted to look back and grin at my earlier interlocutor to suggest we have had an answered prayer or just the propinquity of desire and coincidence. What an experience to have.

Then out of the recesses of memory came the highlighted lines of the third verse of a hymn I can hardly say I have sung in over 40 years. Stand up, Stand up for Jesus which in those days had the organ powered by foot bellows and played by a Muslim classmate. Only a few had art or skill with classical instruments and when I did offer to learn, a teacher thwarted the activity rather than encouraged it. Yet, I took from that short lesson the ability to play the tune to the Do-Re-Mi song and never really improved on it.

Stand up, stand up for Jesus,
stand in his strength alone;
the arm of flesh will fail you,
ye dare not trust your own.
Put on the gospel armour,
each piece put on with prayer;
where duty calls or danger,
be never wanting there.

Hymnary.org - Stand up, stand up for Jesus - George Duffield (1858)

Stand in his strength alone

This probably presents one of the biggest challenges of Christian living where we have learned, been schooled, and have been taught to exert and exercise for achievement derived from endeavour and sweat. The human-centred desire to excel and not attribute success to anyone else without the bruises we have suffered.

The work of faith that involves fully trusting in God for purpose, direction, instruction, inspiration, and affirmation leaves you open to the accusation of being a religious fanatic. Many do not believe in prayer or prayer that works. In terms, many do not even know God’s will about what they pray about to have any kind of assurance beyond the moment they are in.

Unlearning the way of the world and society to stand in His strength alone is a daily quest for letting the divine override the natural world and ways to launch into the orbit of the spirit where one can call things that are not as though they were. God is a spirit and they that worship him should worship him in spirit and in truth. [Bible Gateway: Ephesians 6:10, Proverbs 3:5, Romans 4:17, John 4:24]

The arm of flesh will fail you

The many promises that have been made to us that never got fulfilled by those who in your time of need or great adversity presented a succouring voice that with time was not followed by any action.

In thinking of such, one might be tempted to feel hard done by, hurt, or embittered. Then you realise that for all the abilities people seem to think they have to get things done, meet a demand, offer some support or anything else, they are seriously limited in ability, reach, means, resources, or facility.

We more typically live from day to day as mere mortals unaware of the divine resources that are at our disposal. The abundance of heavenly resources we can call upon but only if we knew anything about God that was first introduced in the Old Testament of the Bible and then the Father God that Jesus Christ revealed and demonstrated in His preaching of the gospel, doing good and healing those who were oppressed.

For the problems that we encounter in life, God has promised us everything to do with life and godliness, yet we depend on what we can do out of strength, maybe in our cunning, or on others who have a frame of reference uninformed by the Word of God and limited to the natural realm.

There is no blessing in trusting the arm of flesh, it even suggests those who do have turned from the Lord. [Bible Gateway: Jeremiah 17:5, Psalm 20:7, 2 Peter 1:3, John 14:12, Acts 10:38]

Ye dare not trust your own

Indeed, what constitutes our upbringing, our education, and our experiences is generally to equip us for a seemingly godless world, where your wits and hard work should yield success. Then, many strive so hard and get nothing or whatever they get is not enduring.

Heck! The booms and busts that have become like milestones in my own life could easily lead one to totally give up, as it can be quite exhausting. It is an engine of hope and expectation created by God within me that keeps me knowing that the night shall pass, the storms shall pass, the pain shall pass, the lack shall pass and His will will be done.

Through time, I have believed in myself, had supreme confidence, and felt I was at the peak of my powers to even project the unassailable before everything came crashing down like a pack of cards.

Trust is in short supply, there is much to learn and understand about trusting God and almost the people you choose to trust with intimate challenges who can give you the desired support and encouragement to traverse the evil day, the wilderness, the doldrums, and the unfortunate circumstances we often encounter. [Bible Gateway: 1 Timothy 4:8, Psalm 34:19, Psalm 112:7, Jeremiah 29:11]

Never a hopeless situation

I am constantly reevaluating what I believe and my faith to be sure that I am never in a situation where I have nothing that can be brought to bear on any situation. [Bible Gateway: 2 Corinthians 13:5]

In the times of the greatest anxiety, I pray, I speak in tongues, and I endeavour not to dwell on the issues that might exacerbate worry and distress. [Bible Gateway: Romans 8:26]

Nowadays, I purposefully decide to sleep and rest even as I am still learning to let God have it all. As He never slumbers nor sleeps, there is no reason for both of us to keep awake through the night. [Bible Gateway: Psalm 121:4]

I listen to sermons about how great God is and who God says I am. One area where I need to devote more voice is speaking to the problem about God, rather than speaking to God about the problem. [Bible Gateway: Mark 11:23]

There is great capacity and possibility in a person who knows God for who God is in His love for us and his care for us, we are only going to find out from His word and those anointed to preach the word. [Bible Gateway: Matthew 19:26]

In that alone, I am not ashamed to know the Christ who came for me that I might have eternal life that starts from this life I am already living on earth. It is why through all adversity, as long as I live, there is hope, change, and a testimony of the goodness and mercy that follows me. [Bible Gateway: Romans 1:16, 1 John 5:13, Psalm 23:6]

PS: Click on and meditate on the links to the verses on this blog and I know that whatever you might be going through, you will find an answer that will give you strength, comfort, resolution, and joy.

Shalom! Shalom!

Kola, before leaving the Golden Jubilee Boulevard

Stretching the material

It wasn’t that long ago that he drove his chariot unto the Golden Jubilee Boulevard and now he is about to leave to join the Diamond Jubilee Card holders club, the processing takes a year, so, we’ll start with filling in the forms along with documenting essential narratives.

I usually say to people there is exactly three weeks between our birthdays, mine is in December and his in January and we are the same age for that duration, though I have the benefit of asking of his experience that probably prepares me for admission into the year class.

It was sometime early in 1984 that I first met Kola, so, we are talking 40 years, for a while I would notice him, I remember vividly one afternoon that he was walking in front of me as we probably were leaving the campus canteen, he seemed to have a penchant for stretch jeans you could not unsee.

Amen or thereabouts

As I scour the recesses of my memory, it is quite likely after I had Christianly spiritual experience that I came into a group of young devotees of which Kola was a fervent and unassuming adherent. It has become an enduring friendship.

How do you write about a friend that sticks closer than a brother, a confidante with whom barely a secret exists, someone who knows you in demeanour, character, and temperament that what he doesn’t know about you, you probably do not know about yourself as well. Yet, his support of you is unstinting, constant, honest, frank, and unflinching.

It is one of love and affection that only an intimate partner might excel, then of a different kind too, that is borne of the tendency to overlook your failings, faults, frailties, and foul-ups. A friend that bat for you regardless of the brickbats, almost as if you can do no wrong, as we have the mutual respect of each other not to abuse the quality of amity and brotherhood we share.

We’re leaning opposites

However, I want to celebrate Kola, forthright in views and we frequently disagree on issues whilst giving each other the opportunity air our viewpoints. He would consider me quite conservative with liberal trimmings, I guess he is the opposite in interesting ways.

This world-travelled wiseman as he can be technologically naïve is nobody’s fool, anyone who misconstrues his silence for acquiescence or weakness would be in for a shock, he will make a stand and doggedly follow through on his principles, taking the hits if necessary and winning the goals eventually.

God bless you

And so, in the year before he leaves for the Golden Jubilee cohort, I and in fact, we, Brian and I wish him the very best of birthday, much joy, love, happiness, and success. That blessings come like a tsunami and overwhelm him in every way. That his dreams become the reality he could never have imagined, tremendously astounding with the kind of amazement and wonder of the miraculous.

A friend of 40 years is to be cherished, lauded, acknowledged, and esteemed. There are not enough words to express thankfulness and gratitude for sharing time, space, resource, conversation, kindness, hearts, minds, and fellowship.

Kola, you are one of a kind, I love you. Happy Birthday!

Related Blogs

Blog - Happy Birthday, Kola (January 2015)

Blog - A birthday greeting to a friend like no other (January 2011)

Obduracy gave us the Titanic and now the Titan

What a rollercoaster of emotions

As the emotions are still raw and people are still coming to terms with the tragedy of the apparent Titan submersible implosion with the loss of 5 souls, this is a difficult subject to broach at any time, yet it is one we must not ignore for the pertinent lessons to be learnt.

As the news cycle played like an orchestra of emotions from the notification of the passengers missing through postulations about the urgency to rescue because of the limited oxygen supply, we even had that glimmer of hope that there was some banging noise at 30-minute intervals, suggesting some human activity indicating distress. The truth amidst the speculations that almost drove us to distraction was a catastrophic incident had already happened and the people we were introduced to over the last 5 days had perished.

We need to know why it happened

Everything is now down to a post-mortem of what happened, and probably more will be revealed in a possible coroner’s inquest with the verdict of death by misadventure. Then, misadventure would be an understatement if all we have learnt about the Titan submersible and the operations of OceanGate in facilitating the tourist event to see the Titanic wreck is reckoned with.

I am in no way against having a sense of adventure, even of the pioneering kind where you are doing what no one else has done before. However, the adventure should never exclude proper risk assessment and more pertinently safety. It has transpired that OceanGate was many times warned about their submersible design, that it had not undergone any independent testing, then certain engineers involved were dismissed when they raised questions, that parts involved in cobbling together the submersible might suffice for a hobbyist, but never for a commercial operation where a general public is put at immeasurable risk of the possible loss of life.

The invisible fatal flaw of hubris

That this submersible was lost along with the CEO of OceanGate pitches the positive attributes and virtues of courage, confidence, adventurism, and derring-do against the greatest flaw when things go wrong, hubris. He was against the essential safety inspections and certifications that might have prevented what many experts in deep-sea submersibles now consider totally preventable.

It is quite likely that those passengers took and derived some confidence from the fact that the CEO was riding with them, it might have suggested to them that if the CEO was willing to take such as risk on such a dangerous mission, they probably would be safer than being piloted by someone with no skin in the game. James Cameron compared the obduracy of the OceanGate’s CEO, Stockton Rush to that of the RMS Titanic’s captain, Edward John Smith, they both ended up at the bottom of the sea beside each other.

Trust but verify for yourself

It has become a somewhat fatal transference of trust, the fact that you can see someone else doing something that encourages you to dabble, even if you are totally unsure you will have the same outcome. In many things, we do need a trailblazer and some sort of example if we are to dare to tread where angels fear to go. We must do that with some knowledge of what we are getting into.

For instance, in a parachute jump, there are fundamental prerequisite checks to make long before the jump, to ensure that the parachute is intact, will operate, that the reserve is there just in case the main parachute does not open, and you do not jump to a conclusion without doing the essential checks, except if on a suicide mission, and that is a different thing.

I do wonder if any of the passengers would have reconsidered this adventure on seeing some of the other interviews with the CEO about the submersible and its record, along with the testimonies that we have now heard about some who ventured and did not consider a return because of their experience and those who pulled out after assessing the lax safety procedures amongst other things.

A tragedy totally preventable

There seems to be a lot of information out there that suggests this was a very dangerous activity and though a few scraps of pulling it off suggested a greater success than the myriad of issues and problems during the event. There is no saying that if the dive exploration that set off on Sunday were successful, not only would we have heard nothing of this adventurism, but it would also have steeled others to shell out about a quarter of a million dollars to see the wreck of the Titanic at 3,810 metres (12,500 feet; 2,080 fathoms) depth below sea level, rather than watch a playback on a National Geographic channel.

There is nothing to celebrate about this tragedy, but much to learn about how we perceive risk, the essential need for safety, the consideration of better-mitigating measures in case of adverse events, the readiness to abort missions when things turn precarious, and the decision to curb our sense of adventure at certain times, just to gain a bit more perspective of the fact that our humanity, whilst amazing resourceful is neither omnipotent nor omniscient.

May their souls, therefore, rest in peace, and may we that remain be humbled to listen and learn the hard lessons taught by the experiences of others.

References

BBC: Titanic director James Cameron accuses OceanGate of cutting corners

Wikipedia: 2023 Titan submersible incident

Coronavirus streets in Manchester - LXVI

Breaking my stride

The fear of abandonment was palpable during a chance encounter with a lady I met on one of my walks late at night. Our conversation began on the note of her acknowledging that I was working hard at my fitness, if only it showed that well, I’ll be a happier man.

As I responded to the compliment, she intimated that she was a victim of some sort of domestic violence which I then learnt was an orchestrated gang rape in a sheltered setting for which the main protagonist had been sentenced to 11 years in prison.

She obviously needed help and I slowed down so she could walk with me, it felt she needed someone to talk to and I was quite disposed to listen and see what I could do to help. I could not give her money as most transactions are cashless, but I offered that we might be able to find a place that takes contactless payments to get her a few essentials.

And we talked

The back-and-forth conversation included my revealing I am gay, I have a partner and our domestic situation when we are together. She made saucy and cheeky comments about what might make me attractive to my partner and much else, she was funny and quite lucid, very aware of the dangers on the street.

She apologised for slowing me down as she was still recovering from the 87 stitches that she received for her injuries. I learnt she was a grandmother, she had had some nasty relationships and been with some rather notorious and violent partners, some of whom had negatively coloured her view of life and survival.

Along the way, she called out to a couple of men who were huddled in a doorway, she volunteered that they were on spice, a synthetic cannabinoid with debilitating side effects sometimes leading to fatalities, and this is on the streets around us to which many of us are totally oblivious.

Trust is scarce

We were planning on going to a night shop, but as I realised we were only about half a kilometre from my home, I would rush home to pick up a few things for her and get my bank card to withdraw some money for her. I have never tried to second-guess what people might do with the money I give them, nor do I want to police what they do with it. It is for them to decide what their immediate need is and to either wisely or unwisely attend to that.

When I told her, I can run home to get a few things, she began to cry thinking I was about to abandon her. I could understand, yet I would only give her assurances that I would return apart from the fact that I did not really want to reveal where I lived. Besides, some people are so desperately in need of help and support beyond the immediacy of what we can do for them in that moment.

Completely worn down

On one occasion, in attending to someone in desperate need, I made the mistake of giving him my phone number, first, he said, he had lost the money I had given him to get shelter for the night, and when I still engaged and secured the shelter, through the night, I was bombarded with calls and pleas, more than 40 of them and it continued to the next day.

I happened to see him a few days after and by then I had been so worn down that there was not a scimitar of empathy left in me as I shouted at him and told him how he made me regret ever meeting him at all. He was never ever to contact me ever again and if he approached me, I would tackle him as a mugger. It was the kind of thing that could sear your conscience against having the milk of human kindness, then again, every person’s circumstance is different.

In the readiness to help, the helped, despite their situation, circumstances, and history should be careful and that is difficult, to not frustrate their helpers with untrammelled demands, we all have limited capacity to address issues that are essentially endemic and in need of more professionally coordinated approaches for long term benefit to those that require it.

Willing to angel

I ran home and got a coat, a scarf, pairs of socks, and the thermal underwear that I bought for my sister when she was in Iceland, but I never got to post, and a few snacks packed into a bag, not forgetting my bank card, and rushed out again.

She was still waiting for me, as I took to one side and showed her everything I had brought before giving her some money. She asked if I was sure I wanted to give her what I had already given her, I guess this thought comes with the concept that the generosity from strangers could be in short supply for those in desperate need. I do wonder if giving them a lot of money can do a perverse thing of changing the concept of value, in terms of what they need.

That is probably something for social scientists, psychologists, or anthropologists to study, I can only do my bit in within the means that I have. What could I do when she started crying at what I had been given the opportunity to do? I embraced her and told her, to think of it as if her had just met an angel. Even on the streets of Manchester, there is goodness, kindness, and mercy for all, those who have and many more who do not have much at all.