Stories, Maths, Politics and Board Games

Stories and numbers seem intertwined in a confusing way. That one should come from another seems odd, but they do have some things in common. Stories involve change, and our earliest lessons in maths teach us how to change numbers. Politicians, game designers, and many other workers in the world require some skill at translation from one to the other, yet I wouldn't know where any of us learned how to do this.

Short Story: The Expedition and the Time Shadow

Nakkie stood shoulder to shoulder between five other men. One of them was Simon from his own team, another looked like a builder from the third construction team, and the other three were cavers. They had been herded into the square room by all of Crune's boys about twenty minutes ago, turning the cube they had spent the last two days putting together into a torchlit cell with depressingly black walls. A single cell, in the deepest of six caverns, sitting one thousand, two hundred and fifteen feet below sea level. That was a lot of rock between them and the sunlight on the brazillian desert above their heads. Not for the first time on this trip, Nakkie didn't like the feel of this.

Religious Duality

Duality is where a person behaves differently around different people. I've gotten the impression that most of us notice ourselves using it while growing up- you learn to behave differently around your teachers than you do around your friends, for example. It can appear common sense in some situations, but in others it may cause us to question whether we are being genuine.

Of all the relationships a person can have, perhaps the most far detached categories are people and God. We relate to people every day, and can choose to relate to God as well, but should we behave differently around the creator of the universe because we cannot see or touch Him?

I am not referring to whether we should respect God or not. That is a question for beliefs and relationship, not for duality. I am instead asking whether we should be behaving very differently to God during our conversations with Him compared to when talking with friends on the street.

Graduation vs. Communion

After years of working hard, the ceremony of Graduation gives each University student a chance to recognise their success, and a sense of closure. It also accompanies at least one motivational speech about facing the future, and the challenges and rewards it may bring.

Graduation is a ceremony which marks the past and points ahead to a hopeful future. So I have found myself comparing it to Holy Communion in church.

The Illusion of Promotion

We imagine that the word promotion is a positive one, a word that defines success and achievement. But from a small amount of observational experience, when you look at how promotion can affect a person's life- not just the part of it that exists at work- I'm less convinced that it is always so positive.

Within the workplace, promotion is portrayed as a reward, a gift, given to someone with recognised talent. It can be said to be given so that a person has a job best suited to their level of competence, a distinctly flattering description.

However, in the context of a persons entire life, I think that very little may be gained from promotion. In some cases, I think that a person gains nothing at all, and instead they merely trade one benefit for another.

Short Story: The Shriggs

In the year five million and one,

a space monk travelled to Pum.

A planet of green,

he hoped he would meet

some nice aliens he could take home.

His space vessel landed on soil,

and his first impressions were royal,

for the beings called Shriggs

were polite little things

with nice food and big homes and green smiles.

But the monk found his learning was slow,

unable to let the Shriggs know,

that a vow to be silent

actually meant

he could only converse with a show.

Pre-Bible Christianity

Within any debate in Christianity, there is a lot of history. I often feel like I have little background knowledge of an issue that concerns my faith.

I think this is why I love the idea of what Pre-Bible Christianity must have been like. By this, I don't mean I dislike the Bible! I'm referring to the small period in history where the apostles such as Saint Peter and Saint Paul had begun to spread the Gospel by word of mouth, but the letters that would form the New Testament had not yet been written down or collected together. All that believers in the middle-east towns knew about Jesus was what they could remember from conversation.

Sight vs. Sound

Memory hides from me where the inspiration came from, but as a teenager I would enjoy asking friends a certain question. I would say, "If you had to be either deaf or blind, which you rather be?"

Most of my friends usually thought about it for a few seconds, and then they replied that they would rather be deaf. Or, in other words, they valued their sight more than their ability to hear. I began to think of this as a typical response from people in England, because most of us in this country have a desire to be independent.

Out of the five senses in our bodies, the sense of sight is probably the one that gives us most independence. Lose your sight and you can't see in front of yourself, can't read signs, and can't distinguish between colour coded items.You need to ask a helper what is going on around you, and feel which direction a guide-dog is pulling you towards for safety when walking.