Richard's Ramblings

During a mad few years at the end of the 90s (that’s 1990s, don’t be cheeky) and early 2000s, I was an international manager for start-up software companies. I had company apartments in Boston, Munich, Johannesburg and Kuala Lumpur. Customers, or pilot sites, were scattered all around USA and Canada, Europe, Africa and Asia.  I circumnavigated the globe at least once every month, sometimes several times a month. It was very disorienting. Leisa would look at her diary and mine, an atlas and airline timetables, and we’d meet up wherever it was best for her to intercept me on my peregrinations.  In particularly frenetic periods, I’d forget where I was or where I was going to. Once, I went up to a check-in desk at Hong Kong, and boldly announced that I was booked to Hong Kong.  “You’re in Hong Kong”, said the nice Cathay Pacific lady. So I am, I remembered, and told her OK, I must be going to Melbourne then. A tip which many of you will know for longhaul flight is to set yo...

I have Ramblers’ Block.  A Bible app (Olive Tree, great value) and a couple of commentaries are open on my iMac in front of me, I have besought the Lord at least thrice for inspiration, but my mind is blank.  In Matthew 6, Jesus tells us to go into our room and pray. I’ve done that, I’m in my study right now, the walls lined with assorted theological and devotional treatises. Also in my room is the dog, barking at everyone who has the temerity to walk past or live over the road. As if that wasn’t distraction enough, off to my right is an iPad streaming the Australia Pakistan Gabba Test. OK Boomer, you say, but I bet I’m not the only Christian who is the cause of his or her own distraction.  Adept (ish) multi-tasker as I am, I can’t give serious attention to God’s Word and something else at the same time.  Prayer is a little different, I can pray while I’m driving (don’t try the old evangelist’s “While every head is bowed and every eye closed” thing), or walking,...

“Thou shalt not covet thy Presbytery Minister’s Tesla” - but I do, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa .  (A couple of explanations of terms, for non-Uniting and non-motorhead folk respectively, the Presbytery Minister is a sort-of bishop, and a Tesla is a dead cool electric car.).  Rev Garry took me for a drive. He can just sit there, arms folded, while the car steers itself around corners and roundabouts, and generally behaves like a model citizen except the citizen has got nothing to do with it.  I think KUC can earn brownie points by installing a fast charger in our car park for when Garry visits. Then other electric car owners would know that it’s there, it will come up on their satnav when they look for charging points in Townsville as they swish silently from Port Douglas to Port Macquarie, and we can serve coffee and let them use our toilets, and share the Gospel, while they wait for their batteries to be topped up. This auto magic is enabled by the array of satellites...