Free at Last? As Brexit finally beckons...

Free at last? At 11pm this evening, the 31st January 2020, the United Kingdom will end its 47 year history of membership of the EU. Many will be celebrating this moment as a return to the good old days of independence. Others will be mourning the passing of close links with our European neighbours. But will we be truly free? Yes, perhaps, free of the unelected bureaucracy that seems to dominate the EU project. Free from the jurisdiction of the European institutions and courts. But really free? I don't think so.

When the Christian leader John Donne said famously that no man is an island entire of itself, he could have been speaking for a nation too. In this global age, the UK will need to carve out a new identity for itself in the family of nations. Going its own way from the block of now 27 nations that is the EU, could easily lead to a period of isolation. Real freedom comes, not from withdrawal and introspection, but engagement, mission and an outward look.

The same is true for the church. God has called us to be a people with an open heart for the world. Donne went on to challenge his readers not to ask 'for whom the bell tolls' as it tolls for each one of us. Real freedom is the freedom to be all that God designed us to be. At times it will come from the laying down of our lives and selfish aims, as much as from the taking up of new opportunities.

The UK has a proud history of serving other nations in their times of need. Twice, they have stepped in to liberate the very territories of the EU that they are about to walk away from. May the vision of its role in the wider world not be diminished by the sounding of bells at 11pm this evening.

Does Britain Have an Opioid Crisis?

Does Britain have an opioid crisis? Dr Michael Mosely thinks so. In this week's Horizon programme on BBC 2 he highlighted the dreadful statistics from across the pond in the USA as a warning to us. He said that in the UK over half a million people are taking opiates like morphine for chronic pain. His claim is that there is evidence that for most of them (he says 90%) the pills are doing no good and can lead to addiction. He also cites the increased danger of accidental overdose - something that happened to me on more than one occasion. I actually stopped breathing once, shortly after putting on a 75mcg patch of Fentanyl and was saved by the presence of a nurse in my home who called the ambulance and got me into hospital. So, I know the stuff he is talking about after 22 years on varying doses of opiates, sometimes up to 5 times what the programme described as 'dangerous levels'.

But, as my book Through the Storms; a manual for when life hurts covers in one chapter, there is another side to this so-called 'opioid crisis'. How about 'a chronic pain epidemic'? Because the problem is that with all this kind of publicity there is a danger of heaping shame and guilt onto sufferers of chronic pain without offering them viable alternatives. Often, it is not their fault that they have been prescribed these drugs by well-meaning doctors, but they are made to feel wretched for needing them. I certainly was at times.

There are research programmes into alternatives to opiate prescribing but they all too often fall into one category or another. Either they are looking into other equally strong but frighteningly powerful drugs, such a gabapentin or similar, or else they are based around well-being. This may all be well and good but, in my case, I don't think a bit of gardening with friends would have dealt with crushing agony of chronic pancreatitis with recurring acute episodes!

I am so thankful for the temporary relief I received from a spinal neuro stimulator and also for the amazing surgical intervention I finally received at the Newcastle International Transplant unit in 2017. Today, after 22 years of appalling pain, I am largely pain-free and also free of any need for opiates.

There is a scandal surrounding the easy availability of powerful pain killers over the counter in the UK, but in my book I am concerned for the many affected by chronic pain without hope of relief except by means of these potentially dangerous opioids. Government funding should be moved into research into alternatives alongside any public information programmes such as this one.

If you are in pain, and can't wait for the publication date for my book on Amazon (20th Feb) please email me at throughthestorms750@gmail.com and I will send you one by mail and can include an invoice for you to make a bank transfer or send a cheque.

The Cult of Celebrity

For the last two days half my daily tabloid newspaper has been full of the Prince Harry & Megan story! It seems that the decision of this relatively young couple to step back from front-line royal duties has taken the British press by storm. Nor could I believe the negativity of their articles and the ridiculous degree of scrutiny being given to this fairly minor set of events. It even knocked the US/Iran crisis into a much less prominent report halfway through the paper, including the possible shooting down of an aircraft with the deaths of over 170 people! It seems to me that we are gripped by one of the worst examples of the cult of celebrity. One dictionary definition of this phenomenon is 'the tendency of people to care too much about famous people'.

Some years ago a scholar at Warwick University in the UK did some interesting research on the cult of celebrity. Dr Angie Hobbs, then of the Department of Philosophy, said "It’s a phenomenon we need to take seriously. Why people are confusing fame and celebrity with the type of activities and creations that are greatly worth celebrating."✽ We probably care too much about the activities of famous people because we get to hear too much about them. Social media and the proliferation of 24 hour news means that there is an insatiable appetite for stories, and plenty of people willing to supply them.

I'm sure that much of the charitable work of the royal couple is highly worthy of promotion and fame. The monarchy itself, as an institution that brings stability and unity to an otherwise overheated political system and national differences, is to be celebrated and preserved. But not to a ridiculous extent that makes a mockery of the amazing achievements of so many who do truly great things in our land in the service of others and of God.

It was once said that the world is yet to see what can be achieved by someone who doesn't care who gets the glory! Today, give thanks for the folk who have blessed you and don't seek the limelight. I thank God for a professor of surgery and his colleagues who spent themselves unstintingly to save my life. I am grateful too, for the humble tomato grower who invited me to church in my teens so that I could learn to follow Christ.

R.T.Kendall wrote a book called 'Popular in Heaven Famous in Hell' and maybe that's the only celebrity that really matters!


✱https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/knowledge-archive/socialscience/celebrity/

The Rattling of God's Bucket

I was passing by a field near our home in which a Guernsey farmer keeps his sheep. Sheep are not common in our island, where the Guernsey cow has pretty much dominated the fields and farms for so long, but this is one of the more remarkable flocks. The sheep are black and white speckled in colour and have long horns. some of those horns are twisted and give these guys and girls a somewhat hostile appearance.

I was surprised by their posture. Normally they are spread out across the meadow engaged in avid grass consumption. This time, they were stretched out in a line, all turned to look intently towards the farmer's house, situated about 500 metres away down the lane. They ignored me and everything around them as they clearly only had eyes for one thing - their shepherd - but he was nowhere in sight.

As I moved on and passed his home, Tony the farmer was walking out on his way to the field. In his hand he held a metal bucket containing animal feed. Either those sheep had heard the rattling of his bucket, or else they were aware of the time day that he normally came. Whatever, these sheep were looking intently for their shepherd to come.

Are you, as a Christian, looking for the coming again of the Good Shepherd? The Bible says we should be (Titus 2:13). And are we listening out for what God is preparing to do in our day? This is the rattling of God's bucket. It may be faint and distant, but if we are looking to God and listening for Him too, we should be positioning ourselves to be ready.

Do you hear that bucket rattle?

Happy New Year.