Claire and Jonty - still more photos

The Holy Family. (C) Miriam Boothroyd

Claire and Sean. (C) Miriam Boothroyd

Jonty and Claire

Where's Jonty?

Theeere he is!

A Touching Story From South Africa

A beautiful, touching story from a generous South African musician.

As a bagpiper, I’ve played many gigs up in Gauteng, but not so many since recently moving to Cape Town.

Recently, I was asked by a funeral director to play at a graveside service for a homeless man. He had no family or friends, so the service was to be at the municipal cemetery in Kraaifontein.

I now stay in Simonstown and was not familiar with the northern suburbs, so I got in a bit of a dwaal on my way there. I finally arrived an hour late and saw the funeral guy had gone and the hearse was nowhere in sight. There were only the diggers left and they were eating lunch.

I felt badly and apologised to the men for being late.

I went to the side of the grave and looked down.

The diggers had already started filling in and not really knowing what else to do, I started to play. The workers put down their lunches and began to gather around. I played out my heart and soul for this man with no family and friends. I played like I've never played before for this homeless man.

And as I played ’Amazing Grace,' the workers began to weep. They wept, I wept, and we all wept together. When I finished, I packed up my bagpipes and started for my car. Though my head hung low, my heart was full.

As I opened the door to my car, I heard one of the workers say, "Jislaaik man, I've never seen this before...   ...an' it's now twenty blerrie years I'm putting in these septic tanks. Shiesh!"

....Apparently, I'm still lost.

I realise that, as chance would have it, the identical thing has been happening for the last 6 years or so to altruistic pipers all over the world, notably in Kentucky and Nebraska, but there is is something particularly poignant about the experience of this noble South African. Thank you, Phil, for sending me this story.

I am sceptical about skeptical atheism - Part 2

This is a follow-up to my post on this topic on December 19.
If you did not read that post then please do so before continuing on here. It provides the foundation upon which this post builds.

Salient points from the previous post:

1. The atheist position is founded upon faith. Atheists "believe" that there is no creator outside of the empirically demonstrable natural order.
2. Deists, theists (and I) conclude by logic that there must have been some Being, before time and space began, which brought time, space and the natural order of our universe into existence.
3. Many humans as reasoning animals have come to similar conclusions about the existence of a Creator-God from their own powers of reasoning.
4. This reasoning ability must have been put into the "DNA" (analogically speaking) of the original singularity or "cell" of creation.
5. One reason that God-The-Creator did this must surely be so that we could know Him-Her-It as our Creator.

What is God-The-Creator like?

How can we talk about God-The-Creator? The only thought categories available to us are those derived from our experience of the world around us. Even atheists cannot escape this problem. What attributes do you ascibe to this "god" that you say does not exist? I do not believe in leprachauns; I do not believe in werewolves. Most readers of this blog can describe salient attributes of leprachauns and werewolves whether or not they believe they actually exist. (Well, OK, maybe I do believe in leprachauns on St Patrick's Day.)

Any thought categories derived from the created universe must fall short of a description of God-The-Creator who existed "before" space, time and the universe existed - perhaps more correctly - is being outside of any constraints of space, time and the natural universe. However, inadequate as these categories may be, they are the only ones we have at our disposal for human reasoning and communication.

Thus we speak of infinite and infinity, which simply means without end, without bounds, and apply these to God-The-Creator, concluding by reason that He-She-It (HSI) cannot be constrained by any limitation of the created order. These words limp, however, as they can only be used analogically. They imply some kind of continuum that has no beginning or end. But God-The-Creator cannot be placed on a continuum, even one that has no boundaries or end. God-The-Creator does not exist in infinite time, for time is of the created order. HSI cannot be in infinite space, for space is of the created order. Clever people such as Einstein have calculated approximately when time began and where space begins and ends. Outside of that there is simply "nothing".

We speak of God-The-Creator as if HSI were a person. I suppose we do this because "person" is the highest form of thinking existence of which we are aware. If we can reason logically, communicate, love, get distressed at injustice, all the things that "persons" can do, then we reason that God-The-Creator must be able to do at least that much plus much more, and so we refer to Him-Her-It (HHI) as a person. It's the best we can do, but we need to remember that we do so by analogy, and any analogy with the created order must limp. Our emotions change and change happens in time. In that sense God-The-Creator's emotions cannot be like the creature's emotions.

Conclusion

I believe that all the above is logically reasonable - at least no more unreasonable than believing that something can bring itself into existence before it, or anything else, exists. We do not need "sacred scriptures" or miraculous divine revelation or intervention to arrive at these conclusions; they are self evident to logical reasoning.

I conclude that God-The-Creator must have wanted His-Her-Its creatures to be able to know by reasoning that they owe their existence to HHI and to know that HSI is some kind of Infinite Person who, even though existing outside of the created order of the universe, can transcend, know and be known, love and be loved as an I and Thou.

Global Warming and My Prostate

As many of you know, I have a very small and very slow-growing cancer of the prostate. So small that it could not be detected for my first two biopsies, eighteen months apart, although blood tests indicated it should be there. I would not even have known about it if I had not gone for my annual physicals and my doctor didn't recommend PSA tests which, at the time, I had to pay for out of my own pocket.

My urologist informs me that there is at present no clinical indication for taking any aggressive treatment against the cancer or my prostate, as by radiation or surgery. If its presence is affecting me emotionally or psychologically it is my call to request further treatment but the present clinical position is one of "watchful waiting" with blood tests twice a year and a biopsy every eighteen months.

Weeeellll, "watchful waiting" is a little too passive for my liking so I've adopted the "active vigilence" approach. I've done a fair bit of Internet and book/newspaper reading around prostate health and prostate cancer and have settled on a regimen of light exercise (I should do more), healthier eating (with Ingrid's help) and nutritional and herbal supplements.

From my reading there is no evidence that any one of these things cures or prevents cancer. There is some evidence to suggest that some reduce risk of developing cancer and that others may inhibit cancer growth. Some, such as Selenium, carry risks associated with overdose so I try to be as careful as I can not to go overboard with quantity or dosage. Maybe these things are helping, maybe not. Maybe all I'm doing is flushing herbs, vitamins and minerals down the toilet as more than one person has suggested - though none to my face. Importantly for me, however, is the feeling that I'm DOING something. I at least feel that I am not helpless and without any control whatsoever over my expected life-span in the face of the "C" word that can inspire such fear. In terms of risk, I reason that the most I have to lose is some money. When I stopped smoking thirty-something years ago I was smoking a pack of 20 per day. If I took that up again it would cost me a lot more than my supplements so I reckon the money spent is worth the peace of mind and, who knows, it just might be helping.

I have kept a record of my blood test results over the years and the chart looks like this. I have deliberately not shown actual result values.

Global warming

So what has this to do with global warming? (If you have jumped straight to this point and skipped the top part of my posting then you have missed the point and are reading this for the wrong reason. I suggest you either go back to the beginning or just hit the "Go Back" button and leave now.)

Below is a chart courtesy of Peter H. Gleick, water and climate scientist, President, Pacific Institute (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-h-gleick/the-graph-that-should-be-_b_808747.html). It plots the global temperature changes from the average for the 20th Century. The site also provides the following list of the hottest 10 years on record, in order:

2010
2005
1998
2003
2002
2009
2006
2007
2004
2001

The planet is sick and it may be incurable - or maybe we can at least slow down the rate of progression. If my PSA was trending like this I would be a worried man - well, a lot more worried. Maybe some of the steps that most climate scientists are suggesting need to be taken won't work as effectively as they say or hope. I haven't come across any evidence to suggest they will make matters worse! All the objections I have come across are economic - mainly from politicians and oil and gas and non-renewable energy consumers who keep playing the "our scientists are better than your scientists" game.

Even today there is a lot of controversy around the use of PSA tests and my own results show how it can be all over the board and influenced by other factors. One result is missing in my graph because I had an infection shortly before the sample was drawn and the result was right off the chart. All this is not sufficient reason not to get a baseline at, say, forty, when your chances of having prostate cancer are very low, and then see how your results trend against your own baseline.

Similarly with tests for global warming, one test on its own is not conclusive. A trend is indicative. Other tests need to be done to verify the indicators. I believe these are being done with such things as measurements on the rate of glacial melting, the occurance of animals outside of their traditional habitats, increased frequency of violent weather extremes.

I get to choose whether to get my prostate whipped out before it is clinically indicated or not. I guess I can even choose to live with the cancer and not treat it when it is clinically indicated to do something about it. Meanwhile I can opt for the watchful waiting or do active vigilence. It is my body, my choice.

With the planet it is different. My newborn grandchildren have no idea what is going on, nor do millions of other children. Millions of adults living in ignorance and poverty are also not in a position to make informed decisions either. Let us not say that we cannot afford the medicine or the treatment while we continue to smoke daily our twenties packs.

Native American proverb:

“Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children.”

A few more pictures of Jonathan (Jonty) Tiago

People have asked me, what is this kid's name? Jonty, Jonathan, Tiago? When I asked Mark and Luisa this question early on while Jonty was still in NICU they told me that they call him by all three names and I should feel free to use any. I'm sure that yesterday I heard Mark refer to him as "JT" or "John T" but I felt awkward double-checking. I was afraid they would think my hearing is getting worse. Don't take my word for it; listen out for yourself when you are around them.

For those who don't know, mainly the non-Portuguese among you, the "o" in Tiago rhymes with "oo" in moon. Linguistically Tiago ties back to Dutch/German Jaco/Jako contracted from Jacobus/Jakobus which is the Germanic form of James. Therefore, Tiago in Portuguese = James in English. Ever heard of a city called Santiago (Saint James)?

Here is a great picture of Jonty (my preferred appellation) waiting for Santa Clause

... and another of Tiago going for a walk in winter a la Luisa.

Finally, a nice shot of Jonathan and Mark.