Author: admin

Twelve years

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A man is ‘called out’ for posting a workout referencing a film ’12 years a slave’ . What are we supposed to do? What is wrong with using such simile? ‘I’m working like a slave’ is not an uncommon phrase. Are we to be banned from using it anymore? Surely it both celebrates the capacity of a slave to work hard and at the same time recognises that a man should not have either to work as a slave or be a slave. What are we to say instead? I’m running like a winger? I’m spinning like a jet engine? Or ballet dancer? They don’t have quite the same impact, do they? And the impact that I’m working like a slave has is derived from the very thing that slavery is.

Slavery is a fact, not just of history, but of our present world. Slave traders were often rich men, and were not just white skinned. Where are the slave routes today? They may not be crossing the Atlantic but they still cross other seas. Who are the traders? Where do they live? What colour, as if it mattered, are their skins?

Our trainer came up with a bright, witty and memorable tag line for his routine. Why condemn it and him? Surely we should celebrate those who in this way expose the hardships of slavery. Perhaps he should have used the proverb slightly amended: I’m working-out like a slave.

But yet still remember: I love, I love my master, I will not go out free, for he is my redeemer, he paid the price for me. In his kingdom there is no distinction between native born and the stranger, there is one law for all: Greek, barbarian and Scythian…which I think includes even the English Irish Scots and Welsh not to mention the rest of the world, slave and free, and one day people from every tribe, tongue and nation shall eat at the table of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Come to him and live. Become his slave and discover that only in his service is their* true freedom.

* I have just noticed it that some grammaticasters may be annoyed by the spelling of ‘their’, but surely it is correct. I leave the reader to discover why that is so.

PureGym trainer received racist abuse after slave post

PureGym personal trainer sorry for ‘very ill-judged’ slavery post

PureGym sorry for ‘unacceptable’ slavery post

Whilst Coco does not agree entirely with our well-intentioned trainer’s conclusion: ‘Unfortunately I can’t rewind time and take it back – it’s my mistake and it’s a big one. I made a poor judgement in a post and I’ve apologised. I don’t know what else I can do‘, Coco also understands that there really is nothing else he can do. When a person wants to find a reason to be offended, they will not accept your apology, neither will they be persuaded by any argument that they have no cause to be offended. It behoves however those who have been offended not to themselves cause offence by insults. Let not the pot call the kettle black.

The only mistake he made was to forget that there are those in this world who enjoy taking offence at someone else’s expense and are constantly on the lookout for the opportunity to do so.

Pandemic

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Social distancing success to avoid a second wave

It is spring in Paris. Ooops, Coco’s mistake, of course it is not, unless there has been a strong deflection of the geocentric axis of which we have been unaware until now. Still, it was a mistake and as much a mistake as Coco’s attempt to draw a snow scene. Pooh had also come to understand this, that pencils were rarely inclined to go where you would prefer to go, but would find their own way to where you would not.

It was towards the beginning of the covidavian pandemic around Easter 2020 that the penguins of the isolated Prince Edward territory had implemented for the protection of their fragile avian society a new social distancing policy.

In recent days as spring approached the rising of the sun shed a new light upon the devastating impact of the influence of the pandemic….

There would be no second wave.

Antarctic penguins as spring arrives

The Ignored Genocide of Christians in Nigeria

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GATESTONEINSTITUTE.ORG
The Ignored Genocide of Christians in Nigeria


Earlier this year… [Boko Haram] released a video of a masked Muslim child holding a pistol behind a bound and kneeling…

Coco does not necessarily endorse or agree with any views or theological statements, except insofar as they are in accordance with the Word of God, which belong solely to the authors thereof, expressed in any of the content of the embedded web page, nor is Coco responsible for the content of external Internet sites. The content of such sites may be changed by the owners or maliciously by hackers, and may no longer display the material for which the link was original provided.
Secondly, the iframe below has limited functionality and you may prefer to read the page on a new tab as it was intended to be read by the authors thereof. If so, please use the link adjacent to the image above.

Slave traders

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At last an acknowledgement on the BBC that the Atlantic slave trade was not solely the responsibility of Europeans, but that Africans themselves provisioned it, that the slave trade itself was already in existence when we arrived and that it survived until the second world war despite our attempts to suppress it. You may notice however that the article reads more like the speech of Mark Anthony than an apology for any part played in the trade.

If it is true that the Nigerian ancestors who “sold slaves…should not be judged by today’s standards or values” why should Colston, Rhodes and Baden-Powell be so judged?

Now, and Coco’s comments are not in Mark Anthony tone, do not think that he is suggesting that the involvement of the African justified or excused our actions, but as it also tells us in this article the eradication of slavery was quite difficult as cultural and social attitudes had to be changed. That battle took place for us towards the end of the 18th century and by the early nineteenth had been largely won by the dedicated perseverance of Christian and other members of our society. The battle must continue today as men will continue to drift from the ethos which teaches that we are all created equal and must all stand as equals before the living God for judgement, as Paul reminded the masters of Colossae, a city in the Roman empire where slavery was commonly practised, Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, knowing that you too have a Master in heaven.


There are other resources available on the African slave trade, this is one on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQETbqyKHng) which has been available for many years. It speaks of the greater suffering of the African slave in the non-Atlantic slave trade, and suggests why it is that the evidence of the Atlantic trade is clearly visible today whereas the evidence for the other trade has been obscured.

Listen, watch and weep.

My Nigerian great-grandfather sold slaves


The legacies of colonial slave-traders are being reassessed, but what about the Africans who profited?

A matter of wind

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In the days of lockdown one of our pastors thought Philippians would be a good place to be. Lockdown proved to be longer than that, so where then do you go? To that great and exciting book of reflections, the book of the wind or breath, no, not the Acts of the Apostles but the preaching of the Preacher, Ecclesiastes. PeteT asked for a profile, but what does a profile matter now? Three years ago it did a little; ten years it was worth something; twenty, thirty years ago surely it was something which we polished up now and again. The Preacher reflected: it was all wind or heavy breathing.

The lockdown is an enforced reflection, not to mention an opportunity to go through forty or more years of papers among which a Poisson distribution dated 8·11·73 on ticker tape had been secreted. Coco has promised himself, no longer having access to a ticker tape reader, that he shall scan it and attempt to decode it, but that is probably not the only type of promise Coco shall break without consequences. In the following reflection a profile may perhaps be discerned, as you will or not.

Continue reading →

Carrots

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Carrots are vegetables

Facebook seem to think that the post referenced here was in some way offensive for Coco, for one, can no longer access it.
Perhaps it really was to logicians, but Coco thought the argument had some merit, albeit small and inappropriately aligned, but to say offensive? To whom? Coco suspects this appropriately misaligned commentary will also be deemed offensive.

  • Carrots are vegetables, and
  • Black lives matter.

The two sentences are not comparable. One is a statement about the properties of carrots or an example of what the property vegetable is, the other is a political statement, the result of the condensation of a political manifesto or agenda into three words.

Of course additional words are required in order to explain what the political statement means. Should the first word be All, Most or Some? Does Black include brown, tan, olive, red, yellow – should Coco go on? If black only means black Coco understands, but if it means more than black why would it not also include pink? What does Matter mean? ‘Has value’ is probably what is implied.

… almost finished, two more points which are perhaps the most controversial. Is ‘Black lives matter’ true in the logical sense of true? I would suggest that those who hold this doctrine believe it is not true. They declare a contradiction. They use the slogan only because black lives do not matter and so declare an untruth.

Now please do not understand Coco, that was the penultimate point. The last point to make here is that the slogan lacks a reference point. In most cases where someone declares ‘It matters’ There is a preceding context which makes clear the meaning and to whom ‘it’ matters. ‘It matters to the customer, the boss, usw. ‘It’ is the Zanies’s hook and belt without which he cannot do his work. It matters to him, but not to Coco who would have no idea how to use it anyway. So this is the final point, to whom do the black lives matter to which this slogan refers? As Coco has said, there would be no need to say this if it were true, but it is not; black lives apparently do not matter to some. Who are the some to whom they do not matter? Coco leaves you, dear reader, to answer that question.

But let Coco affirm, just as carrots are a vegetable, Coco can use this slogan in a different way than intended: Black lives matter to God who made all men in his image, and because he has made us in his image men of all shades should treat every other man with the full respect that they expect for themselves. If you prefer to believe Darwin’s disciples rather than God then it is clear that you have no grounds on which to rest your case and claim that black lives matter any more than covid-19 virus lives matter. Sadly, we have not obeyed the commandments of God, we treat him with contempt; is it then a surprise to you than we treat other men badly? But God is not willing that we should perish, but gave his only Son to die on a Roman cross for our sins that we might be reconciled to him. Believe this and you shall live, and in Christ there is neither slave nor free, Jew nor Gentile, Greek nor Barbarian nor even Scythians we are a new one nation in him.

☺With apologies in advance for errors of syntax, orthography and grammar which may be found embedded in this document whether arising from oversight, incorrect application of language packs or generally any other misadventure; and in general for any offence given inadvertently or inappropriately or both taken or not taken by those whose sensibilities, whether grammatical, orthographical, moral or simply personable, have been offended whether, not or if you have not incorrectly misunderstood the content, intent, meaning and purpose of this article, and to those whose copyrights may have been inadvertently or wantonly infringed, but never as to cause damage the copy holder’s rights, and, if you have managed to read this far, for any errors or omissions whether wilful, unintended, innocent or deliberate in the content of this polemic, and with thanks to you who have made it thus far for your patience.

Black but comely

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Do those words cause offence? Is it the sort of thing you should shout out in the streets these days? Does it make you think of skin colouring? There are many skin types from black through browns, olives, yellows, reds, pinks, pales to white. If Coco have missed any please tell me [off?]. Please do not think that Coco has forgotten about frogs, fish, flora and feathered friends whose colourings are far more vibrant than our own. Does it make you think of complexion? A dark (to submit to modern perspectives on the matter, but Coco really means black) complexion is much more robust than a pale [white] one and longer lasting. But it is not just skin colouring that is in view here.

One of my friends declared after a wonderfully warm and dry spell in Canada: I am black! Well if your first language is not English perhaps you do not notice the similarity in the words but in Spanish soy negra (which also happens to be close to the colour of the sauce) you would, and so may be forgiven for the declaration.

And perhaps this also gives you a clue as to what is being said in the opening remark.

If this had been said in the modern age then this is what the young lady would have written to her friends perhaps through the medium in which you are now reading it, or perhaps on a better known social media platform, (and if you are not reading it well, what can I say? You would not even know that this had been written anyway) whilst on her holiday in Tenerife or Lanzarote, but they were said three thousand years ago, albeit in not too dissimilar circumstances. We find them towards the beginning of a play which antedates even the surviving plays of the Greeks by just a little short of five hundred years.

At the beginning of a play, as we were being introduced to her, one of principle characters made this declaration to her teenage friends. We do not know what her complexion was, though perhaps it is likely to have been an olive shade, but we do know how she had come to say: I am black! She herself tells us that the sun had scorched her, as one of the translators puts it. We would say tanned. She was a farmer’s daughter and worked in the open air looking after her brothers’ vineyards (under duress) rather more than her own. Her exclamation and explanation tells us that the events here are taking place in the summer months possibly around or towards the harvest time for grapes.

She was a farmer’s daughter but in the manner picked up, but toned down also, by Disney was to become even more than the Disney princess. Without giving a spoiler the story also ends in a different place than you would expect the Disney story to end. So the timing of the play is also introduced to us, the events then unfold for us over a period of perhaps as long as three or four years. The stage directions have either been lost or not preserved depending upon your perspective on the matter so it is not entirely possible to be certain of them, but there is enough in the text to settle most of the possibilities. Now, it is not at this time I want to say any more about the play, but hope to return to it in the coming days (it is not possible to return to it in the preceding days you will take careful note).

Now you may wonder what a story about a teenager who had been sunbathing has to do with Easter weekend. Well nothing really, but we all make many allusions, correlations which have no actual basis or causation, but does it matter? In scientific (in the general sense) enquiry, yes of course it does, but not in literary works, you only need to read Lucas or Adams to understand that.

Now for those of you who missed your trip to Lanzarote, Tenerife or just St Davids, and longed to have been able to write home to say those opening words to your friends but have been unable to do so, and for you who merely read the opening words just to skip to the end and for those of you who have managed to climb this far, it is in common parlance Easter time:

The Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week having fulfilled everything that he had been sent to do, having carried the just wrath of God, paying the penalty for our sin, lying in the grave after the manner of Jonah in the belly of the whale, therefore God has highly exalted him that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Let us worship him.

Pray!

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Pray? Did I hear you say?

When did you last hear that said? We were reminded of that this morning. In these days of quarantine what do you do?

The Lord Jesus told his disciples that they too should go into quarantine. Those of you who have no interest in tax or law please skip the next paragraph. Those of you who do, please correct me. It does have a remote significance to the point I have to make, but skipping it will not harm.

Coco came across some notes of a discussion on charitable status which contained the following reference; for the purposes of obtaining tax relief, you would expect that a religious group would not find any difficulty in obtaining such a status. However the RC Carmelite Priory which housed a contemplative order, devoted to prayer, and therefore quarantined was found not to be charitable as the public benefit provided was not susceptible to legal proof, which the court required in order to act. Lord Greene did not argue that there was no public benefit but that the benefit could not be proven and without proof of benefit you cannot move from the position of being non-beneficial. That there is public benefit in private prayer is, as we shall see, without contradiction.

In the sermon on the mount, which you will know starts with the beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, etc the Lord goes on to say, just after the section dealing with charitable giving and good works where he says: Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing: when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room [quarantine yourself], and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place (Matthew’s gospel chapter 6).

When we are going to pray we are enjoined by the Lord to hide away in our own room away from others. It is there that we make our requests known to our heavenly Father, who hears us. Are we in our enforced quarantine making use of this opportunity to hide away and make our requests known? In times past our leaders have exhorted us in times of national distress to pray. We live in a day of international distress, do we hear that call today, or have some of our leaders lost their way?

The Lord went on in the sermon to say: your Father who sees in secret will himself reward you openly. Openly, in plain sight, in public that the benefit of your praying might be felt by all. Paul wrote to the Philippians (my paraphrase): For I know that through your prayer taken on by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, this will turn out for my deliverance.

Coco wrote this before the Queen’s speech this evening. It was good to hear her words about people who pray. Coco asked, should he change any of this? Perhaps, perhaps not….you may judge.

But we, let us pray and seek the Lord that he may have mercy upon us and upon our land. It will be costly. If you will approach him you must have clean hands and a pure heart, and who of us can say to that I do? But he in Jesus Christ will provide that so we may come to him in Jesus’s name and he shall hear us.

Lockdown

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Coco has been clearing out for shredding old files which have lain in loft space for twenty years….not much changes apart from the writing technology. The attached picture is a scan of the opening paragraph of a letter sent to him in the ember months of, Coco thinks, 1987 but it may have been ’86 or ’88.

It was written using a typewriter as you will be able to tell by the imperfections in the corrected letter i printed in white ink. Who remembers those typewriters?

Coco does not remember the reason for that lock down, and shall not tell on the two who broke it. It will now take East German technology to put the document back together. If you recall what caused the lock down and for how long it lasted, do, please, provide an extended discourse on the matter in this forum.

Thank you.

A great and terrible plague

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When David counted

It occurred to me the other evening, or perhaps it was morning, evenings and mornings rapidly roll into one another, that after David had conducted a census of the people that there had been a plague, the proportions of which I could not remember. It is recorded for us in chapter 24 of the second book of Samuel. In the light of the pestilence that faces us I thought I should look it up.

David in conducting a census had done wrong, not because the census in itself was wrong but because David had succumbed to pride, pride in his own rule of Israel, and pride in Israel. He had forgotten the Lord. He understood this no sooner had the partial results of the census been delivered to him and he sought forgiveness. The prophet Gad came to him to offer him three things: famine for three years, war (and defeat in battle) for three months or plague for three days. David did not make a choice, but rather fell on the mercies of God and asked of Gad that he fall into the hands of the Lord rather than the hands of men. So the matter was settled and the land would suffer three days of plague. In three days seventy thousand men died. It is fair, I think, to assume that these were fighting men as the census was only of the number of them. The count had been around 1.2-1.5 million. In three days about one in twenty had died. That was quite some plague.

On the third day Gad instructed David to build in Jerusalem an altar to the Lord on the threshing floor of a gentleman called Araunah. This David did. He paid a good price for the land and its equipment and offered there burnt offerings to the Lord. The Lord heard David’s prayer and at that time the plague was brought to an end. The destroying angel was told to restrain his hand and return his sword to its sheath.

We understand that the land which David bought would become the site of the temple which Solomon built. A thousand years later another sacrifice would be made on a nearby hill which would stem an even greater plague.

David had forgotten the Lord. In the pride he had in his achievements he turned away. The Lord is however merciful, and David was brought to repent, though it was not to be without no cost to his people. David threw himself upon the mercy of the Lord, and in obedience and reliance upon him offered an appropriate sacrifice. I am not one who looks into the book of Revelation and to say: Oh look, this is this and that is that. The trumpets sound, and the bowls are poured out. We live in a world where the trumpets sound each day – John Dunne put it:

Never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.

Plague and pestilence are neither novel nor unexpected, but the severity of them may be. We are faced with a severe plague, perhaps not so severe, though we have only seen the beginnings of it yet, as the great plagues of history, and nothing yet like the pestilence that David saw, but do we hear the trumpet in the plague? Do we hear the warning? Or are we like David so proud of our own achievements that we forget the Lord? The trumpet is sounding, but we still are not woken up. We only need to look at how little notice many have taken of the warnings of our governments to see how little notice is taken of the trumpet sounding.

David’s sacrifice did not actually stem the plague in his day. It was the mercy of the Lord that brought it to an end. But David’s sacrifice did prefigure the sacrifice of the one who now sits upon his throne, the Lord himself our Jesus, the Messiah. I mentioned that above that that sacrifice would stem a greater plague, the plague that has a hundred percent mortality. It is this plague that causes us to forget him, that causes us not to want to know him, that causes so much destruction, despair, and damage in this world, in our own lives and in other people’s lives by what we do and say. It is sin. Jesus died at the hand of both Jew and Gentile for the sins of the world. That he rose from the dead confirms that his sacrifice was accepted and we, you and I, may have peace with God and eternal life in him. And more, we can look forward to a resurrection like his, where we shall receive bodies which do not suffer the weaknesses of our present bodies.

The pestilence is sounding its own trumpet to us. When it has passed there are many here today who may not be here then, but before then, will we hear the trumpet and look to the one who can stem the plague?

God can justly show mercy and provide forgiveness to sinners.