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I met a married couple at a mission dinner recently who had a brilliant way of supporting missionary causes. He introduced himself as an investor, and she as a seeker-out and spender; with a strategy to both use their gifts and insights to bring a double blessing. What a dynamic duo, and certainly better than…

One day I will write a book about weeds. In the lawn at church, I was stunned to find a weed, on top of a weed, on top of a weed, with some poor grass underneath struggling to breathe. I’m no botanist, but the topmost villain was clover, and already sporting a nasty spray of…

At a recent church fishing event, I discovered that one of our young men was trying to catch fish with a lolly. He had baited his hook with a sour worm, and with the rationale that fish like sugar. I immediately put his chances at catching a fish below zero – though mathematically I don’t…

For years, Brother Andrew, whose recent ‘call to glory’ is being marked and honoured around the world, was known as ‘God’s smuggler’. The moniker became the title of a written account of his adventures in ferrying Bibles to believers behind the iron curtain. It was a name however that he wished hadn’t stuck, for it…

Exfiltration sounds like a step required in cleaning a coffee machine, but it’s actually a spy term – the opposite of infiltration. It describes the process of extracting an agent from the country in which they’re spying. It is typically a dangerous operation, especially when surveillance is in bedrooms and bathrooms, and radioactive dust is…

What a great word, and what a great idea. From the French word flaque, meaning puddle, comes this term that describes a street artist filling in cracks and potholes with beautiful mosaics. Currently, such an artist in France is beautifying broken paths and pavements, and quietly bringing a smile to many faces. “The goal is…

C S Forester in his classic The General, offers an insightful analogy in his critique of the English High Command during the first world war. The commanding officers were committed to the old modes of military conflict: infantry advances with guns, calvary ready to follow with lances and swords, war by attrition, the winner declared…

One of the great visions recorded in the Book is that of the prophet Isaiah. He sees the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne, and the train of his robe – a symbol of sovereignty and strength – not merely draped over a single rafter, but filling the temple. And in surround-sound he…

My poor lawn’s looking like it’s just been to a bad barber. An axle-clip, unbeknownst to me, had dislodged, significantly reducing the cutting height of the mower, and produced an unfortunate strip of ‘short back and sides’ before it was detected. Replacing it of course, was one of those ‘one minute jobs that costs four…

In a novel about Russian master-musician Shostakovich, I came across a funny line about a funny exchange. Another Russian composer, Rimsky-Korsakov, was being ‘persuaded’ to go to Paris. Resigned to his fate, he sent a postcard to register his acceptance, which read: ‘If we’re going, then let’s go, as the parrot said to the cat…