sparkle

Starting work aged 16 in the offices of the Derby Evening Telegraph, I was one of eight young hopefuls looking for a career in journalism. There was no such thing as work experience, or job seekers' allowances. We were told that if after six months we showed signs of understaning the way newspapers worked then four of us would be taken on as juniors, and four would be told to find something else to do with their lives. Four were discharged, before the six months were up, for incredible stupidity; one was to take down racing results from a phone service, but went to sleep. He was found with his head on the desk by frantc printers wondering where the result of the 300pm at Kempton Park had got to. The rest of us clung on in spite of furious sub-editors, and a news editor who wore his ulcer like a badge of office. My first reporting job was a meeting of Derby Groundsmen's Association, and I produced  100 words on the problem groundsmen were  having with moles under cricket pitches. The sports editor threw my 'copy' back at me, and said: 'mek it sparkle, lad!'  I gradually discovered ways in which even the most tedious subject could be made interesting. In 550 The academic Muretus fell on hard times financially and physically. He was taken to hospital, where surgeons said, thinking he was unable to understand:. 'There's nothing we can do with this nobody. Let's experimentt with his bones'. Muretus looked at them and said in perfect Latin: 'Don't call any person for whom Christ died a "nobody".' In faith even the dullest can sparkle

creeds

Millions of people go to church n Sundays to worship an oxymoron. No, that's not the name of the preacher! Ir's a god who is said to be two quite contrary things. The Apostles' Creed sys he is 'Almighty', while all the way through the New Testament we think of God as 'love'.  How can this be?  'Almighty' implies omnipotence - tortal power to intervene in all things. But many of the things that happen in real life are bad. Would not an all-powerful father intervene if it were seen that his family were suffering in earthquales, wars, famine? The God we speak of cannot be almightty AND love, because the two words mean contrary things and so constitute an oxymoron. Progressive Christians see the point of ceasing to refer to God as 'Almighty'. He not only fails to prevent bad things happening, he is absolutely vulnerable to them himself, viz in Jesus having to face the cross without any intervention. God is 'love' in that he somehow enables people to cope with the worst that life can throw at them.  We are all vulnerable to the perils and dangers of mortal life, but reliance on the ever-present Christ spirit we can face whatever comes with what the old hymn rightly calls 'blessed assurance'. So no more praying to 'almighty' God to change the weather or find us a car park space.

Prepare

Preparation is everyrthing. When Andy Flower was explaining the way England lost all three cricket tests against Pakistan he said the team had not been properly prepared. Flower is the team's coach, and peparation was his reponsibility, so in what way did they fall short>? When my wife heard him blame  poor preparation she was surprsed. These men had been playing cricket, she said, since they were first able to hold a bat and ball, and so had been playing the game for say 20 years, What better preparation could they have had? True enough: they were fit, young, well paid, and had reached a goal to which thousands of young men aspired. Did they suffer from a condition which holds back so many people in sport, business, and personal relationships, called confidence deficit?  Obviously financial reward, physicall fitness, youth, experience and even the personal support of a wife or partner is not enough to assure self-belief. Nor in the case of test cricketers or top footballers is the adulation of the masses. There can be no greater peparation  for any human endeavour than in the words of the man who wrote Philippians 4.13: 'I can do all things through him who gives me strength'. Who is he? Surely worth finding out.