Preaching with a purpose

I watched The Detectorists tonight. I have not watched it before. It is about a group of people who use detecting equipment to discover old coins and other things of archeological interest. This was the last in the series and had a bitter sweet feel to it.  One of the main characters asked,"Why do we do it?" and the other replied,"This is the nearest you will ever get to time travel." You have to be an optimist to do metal detecting.  There is always the attraction of making a big find or an important discovery.  Among all the tin cans and coat hangers found there is the hope of a Saxon hoard, or Roman gold. Optimism keeps them going.

I think I'm becoming a fan of BBC 4. Tonight they showed a reenactment of the Roman cavalry in Carlisle.  An amazing sight which the archeologists really enjoyed and learnt from.  You have to have a lot of imagination as an archeologist, sometimes it leads them astray, sometimes they find the right answers , or at least we hope so.  Archeology is fascinating, but one and one does not always make two.  As I said a lot of imagination is needed and it is difficult to sort the useful imagination from someone sticking to their own pet theory, come what may.

I have written in previous posts about disasters. In the case of Concorde, decisions by people, plus other factors were directly to blame for the event.  In the case of the Penlee disaster it may have been avoided if someone had made a better choice in the time beforehand and as a consequence brave men and the ship's crew and the captain and his family died. 9/11 was certainly the result of wicked men committing a terrorist act, but even in this there was heroism notably by another Cornish man, Rick Rescorla who helped many to safety and left it too late to help himself.  In situations like this we see what the human spirit is capable of both good and evil. What of disasters that come on people because of the earth restless movement of tectonic plates.  Often people live near volcanoes because the land is rich and fertile and they have the chance of a better life there when the volcano is resting.  We cannot blame them for that but sometimes people become complacent and fool thems

December 19th this year will be the 36th anniversary of this disaster. Eight brave men from the village of Mousehole, Cornwall gave their lives in an heroic attempt to save the crew and Captain's family in a storm which had crippled their ship and driven it near rocks. I heard the story at a 60 plus meeting. It was the most moving account I've heard and given by a man from Mousehole, who was no doubt a relative of some if not all who died on the Solomon Browne. Apparently the captain of the Union Star had previously refused help from a tug, presumably because the tug could then claim salvage.  He might well have been saved by such a move but he refused only to lose his life, the lives of his crew and family and even more tragically the lives of brave men trying to save him against the odds.  The captain of the Solomon Browne obviously realized the danger of the situation as he refused to take one young crewman because his father was already on board and it was his policy not to

There was a fascinating programme about Concorde on television last night.  My memory of it was that as it passed overhead in Devon it reached supersonic speed and we heard a load bang every time as it broke the sound barrier.  I think they eventually got it to do it more out to sea, so I guess the Scilly Isles heard it instead. It was a phenomenon in my time.  Such a shame that it crashed and lost all on board.  As usual most of the problem was down to "human error." Extra luggage had been allowed on board and extra fuel had been taken in.  They couldn't help the piece of metal on the runway, I suppose. What finally did for Concorde was 9/11.  After that, for some time, people were generally put off air travel. I guess Concorde was a sort of titanic of the skies. Maybe even a Tower of Babel. When we worship things other than God they always let us down. When we worship these things we are worshipping man's achievements and man himself and always we are let down.  Jes

Canada 57 United States 9 Germany 5 United Kingdom 3 Belgium 1 Brazil 1 France 1 Peru 1 Romania 1   When I was young I used to wonder if I would be a missionary.  Would I go to darkest Africa or somewhere in India.  It all depended on the current visiting missionary on furlough.  For a while I was interested in Lebanon and later in Nepal.  There was no way I could have believed you then if you had told me I would be able to write about Jesus to people all over the world, at the same time and with no stamps involved (you know those little squares of sticky paper you can put on envelopes.) But here I am and there you are and I do hope I am bringing blessing into life with my blog. As you see I am not going viral, but if someone is being blessed I am happy. Sorry I let you slip Romania.