It's not XMAS, you fool. It's CHRISTMAS!

Well, after an absence of almost 3 months with writer's block and 4 unfinished blogs, I'm back with a vengeance and I'm back with an agenda. As you can see from the title of this blog, there are no prizes for guessing where I'm going on this issue. I make no apologies for the title of this blog. In fact, it was Biblically inspired, but I'll get to that later.

The prompting to write this blog has come from reading online newspapers on a daily basis from South Africa, the United States and the United Kingdom. It neither saddens nor sickens me to read the references made in these papers to the Christmas season and all the festivities associated with this time of the year. It makes me outright indignant. This is NOT the Festive Season. It is NOT the 'Silly Season'. Neither is it Happy Holidays or any other title the media may ascribe to this time of year. It is Christmas. Always has been, and always will be. This is the time of year where millions of Christians around the world celebrate the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Emanuel - God with us. It is the time of year when we celebrate God stepping out of eternity and into time, taking the form of a human being, coming to reconcile man to God and bring salvation to all.

I'm horrified by the number of newspaper articles and shopping advertisements I've seen all making reference to Merry Xmas or Xmas Shopping specials. The hypocrisy and bigotry displayed by the media is enough to make me want to rip what remaining strands of hair I have left on my head off in disgust. They have no problem printing pages of colour inserts or bold headlines on the front pages of their newspapers that wish their readers a Happy Diwali or Happy Eid Ul Fitr, yet at this time of year, the best they can do is Happy Holidays, Seasons Greetings, or if they go out on a limb - Merry Xmas. Jesus Christ is the reason for this season. I am not an Xian - I am a Christian. His name is not Jesus X - it is Jesus Christ. This is not Xmas - it is Christmas. Jesus was not just a person, He was God. The Bible tells us that He was the express image of the invisible God. Secular media and society contest the fact that He is the one true God and think that by removing 'Christ' from these titles, they can erase the reason for this celebration. It is the fool who says in his heart 'there is no God' (Pslam 14:1) - hence the title of my blog - and only a fool would dare contend with God. The day will come, when every knee of believer and unbeliever alike, will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Dear Editor,

Try as you like to avoid saying or printing the 'Christ' word over Christmas, but the day will come when you'll confess it, and confess Him as Lord.

Sincerely
Linton

And on that note, may I take this opportunity to wish you and your families a wonderful and joyous Christmas. I really do pray and trust that Jesus will be the centre feature of all that you do, not a tree, not presents and certainly not the food. May the presence of God fill your homes and hearts and His hand of blessing be upon you all. May He make His face shine upon you, protect you and give you peace and rest over these holidays.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

AND 

GOD BLESS

Thank God I'm not God!

Sometimes a bad day is actually a bad day more as a result of our responses or lack thereof in any given or seemingly negative situation. I'm not denying that fact that situations do go wrong, and that things happen that do just 'push our buttons', but in each of these situations, we are still the ones who should have control over our emotions to determine just how this is going to effect me. I've always assumed that I fall into the range of what is considered normal of a person who is both mentally and emotionally stable, but this week, my flesh betrayed me, and has shown me to be a sadistic, deranged megalomaniac, who probably needs a couple sessions of the couch with Dr. Phil. Allow me to explain.

One of the assignments that the kids have been given at school this week, is to imagine that they were omnipotent and had control and influence over all the world, and then to write an essay on how they would make the world a better place for everyone. I would love to say that I threw myself heart and soul into the project by putting pen to paper, explaining how I would fill the earth with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, bring about lasting world peace, find cures for all diseases, stop all whale hunting and clubbing of seals, ensure that re-forestation projects reclaimed all that has been damaged and deforested, but truthfully, the best I could come up with was to wipe out about three quarters of earth's population. And the remaining quarter, well, I had them maimed just to teach them a lesson.

The reason for my diabolical responses, I'm somewhat embarrassed to say, are seemingly trivial situations and yet somehow they just seem to send my blood pressure soaring and leave me muttering away under my breath, while clicking my tongue as I walk away. For example, I do not understand why it is that people feel the need to stand in a door way and have a conversation, blocking both the entrance and exit to the room. Is there something comforting or cosy about the surrounding door frame that facilitates or offers security to those to those engaging in door way chit chat? No matter how many times you say excuse me, clear your throat or give fake coughs, they remain entrenched in their position. And for the life of me, I cannot fathom how, when they can see you hopping from one foot to the next like a cat on a hot tin roof, with a line of other people also wanting to enter the room forming behind you, they don't think that maybe they are obstructing the way. And then it all turns nasty when you start standing on tippy toes to see over them into the room, at which point they normally say something inane like, 'Excuse me, we're trying to have a conversation here,' or 'Oh, would you like to enter the room?' And should you politely respond with, 'Get out of my way, NOW!', they give you that look of dejection and hurt and tell you that there's no need to be ugly about it. In my animated thoughts, because these people won't move of their own volition, I zap them with my imaginary ray gun and make them disappear.

Another group of people that I would probably have wiped out in my moment of frustration, are those who cause unnecessary delays. I encounter at least one of them a week. Morning rush hour sees about 2 million people commute on Madrid's Metro system which I am told is the world's most efficient and user friendly underground transport system - eclipsing even Japan. The rush hour performance of the people is equally efficient and can only be described as a synchronous ballet of entrance and exit as people with ticket in hand pass through the turnstiles. But then there is always one, who has a bag bigger than the one that I arrived in Madrid with and which carried all my possessions, who only when in the turnstile decides to rummage through her bag to find her ticket - and yours truly is normally next in line behind her. There is no retreat from a situation like this, only a frustrating wait as she scratches through her bag like a hen scratching for worms pulling out shopping receipts and then shaking her head disapprovingly that it's not the travel ticket, then squealing with delight at finding the missing top to her lipstick and holding it up in triumph for all the world to see as if she's carrying the Olympic flame before opening another bag within the bag (a bag of equally chaotic cosmetics), to replace the lipstick top on the lipstick, then finding 'a' ticket which turns out to be invalid because it's last month's travel pass. Once those unfathomable depths have been fathomed, and the bottle-neck has now grown to almost out the door, she unzips the side pocket and eureka, finds the travel pass and smiles in victory as she sails through the turnstile. I too smile back through gritted teeth, though my victory is that I didn't drop kick her over the turnstile.

So, I guess we can all breathe a sigh of relief and be grateful that I am not God, and that neither is any other human being for that matter. I also guess that we shouldn't think too highly of ourselves, because at some point we are either the one frustrating somebody else, or the one devising malevolent plans to solve the crisis. Think about this: Our God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. He does not accuse us, nor remain angry forever. He does not punish us for all our sins, nor does He deal harshly with us as our sins deserve (Ps. 103:8-10 NLT). That's something that we all need to remember. Next time you read the news and find yourself 'responding' to something about a politician, or something someone did to you, or a situation you find yourself in, let's try the godly response: being slow to anger and not accusing and I'm sure you'll have a wonderful week.

God bless

Four Weddings and a Funeral

So, in all the time I have spent here in Spain I have attended 4 weddings - and now a funeral. All of them have been eventful in their own right, but this week's funeral was, both figuratively and literally, a trip down the road less traveled.

The Spanish have never been a people who beat around the bush, as demonstrated on Tuesday morning, when I was woken up by a text message that read: 'She's dead!' Still scraping the previous night's sleep off my congealed eyelashes to make sure I was reading correctly, I was greeted by another text that read: 'Tanatorio Tres Cantos 7pm' (Tres Cantos Mortuary 7pm). Considering myself to have been notified, as well as invited to the funeral, I set about making plans and preparations to get to this place as it's quite a way out of the city. A simple train journey, with three interchanges, would get me to my destination ... or so I thought. According to Google Maps, the mortuary in Tres Cantos was located behind the train station, but on the other side of the highway. But according to real life, as well as the people who live in Tres Cantos, there wasn't any mortuary in this town. After clarifying this fact with several people, I was eventually told that there was a cemetery outside of town, and the man working at the petrol station gestured that if I continued along 'this road', I would eventually get to it. Looking back, what I also should have clarified, was just how far out of town along 'this road' the cemetery was. 'This road' was, coincidentally, soon to become the on-ramp to the freeway, and in no time at all I found myself power walking in a black suit next to trucks, buses, cars and motorbikes. Four kilometers later, with no cemetery in sight on either side of the freeway, I reached the off-ramp to the next village and had to do an about turn to return to Tres Cantos singing 'I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500 more' all the way back. As a fool returns to his folly, and a dog returns to its vomit, so Linton returned to the same man, at the same petrol station, to ask the same question, to get to the same place as requested before, but this time the man said, 'Oh! It must be in the other direction then, down this road.' And again he gestured down the same road, but this time in the opposite direction. This time, after confirming the existence of my destination, I took a taxi.


The mortuary itself, I can only describe as being grandiose in every sense of the word, with seventeen venues for the memorial services. Just like in an airport, there is a screen in the entrance hall where you check the starting time and venue of the memorial service you will be attending. As I had now arrived late, I briefly glanced at the screen before dashing off to venue seventeen to attend the service, and this was where the drama began. With the service already underway, the doors to the venue were closed, so I tried pulling them to get in. Nothing. So, I tried pulling them a little harder. Still nothing. Well, if they're not pull doors then they must be push doors, so I tried pushing them open. Nothing. Always game for a second attempt, I tried pushing them a bit harder still, at which point I heard a person on the other side, and then the doors miraculously slid open sideways. Standing in front of me was a man dressed in air force uniform, but this didn't surprise me in the least, as the family to whom the deceased belonged, are highly influential in the Spanish government. The chapel was jam-packed with people, so, shrugging my shoulders and apologising profusely as I went, I pushed my way through the people standing at the back and settled into a free space in the third to last row. After about five minutes, a military colonel took the podium to do his eulogy, and began to comment about what a wonderful pilot the deceased was and what a huge loss his passing away is to the force. I sat dumbstruck and horrified at the realisation that I'd entered the wrong chapel, but that was soon overshadowed by the bombardment of thoughts as to how I was going to get out through the throng of people I'd just pushed my way through in order to get in. As this was a military funeral, I opted for a more discreet method of withdrawal and decided to practically leopard crawl my way out, and was almost past the last pew  when it happened, my cellphone rang. I receive on average two phone calls a month, normally from my mother, and now of all times my phone had to ring. To make matters worse, my ringtone is the chorus of Funky Town by Lipps Inc. So there, hobbling on my haunches, I broke the solemn silence with 'Won't you take me to ... funky town ... won't you take me to ... fuu  uu uunky town!' The rest was a blur to me. I have no recollection of how I got out of there, needless to say it was roughly at the speed of light.

The rest of the evening's events did proceed normally. I did manage to find the right venue in the end and sit through the last ten minutes of the funeral mass. I even managed to view the coffin. I also managed to eat a couple tuna mayonnaise sandwiches with the coffin a mere metre an a half away, although I did turn my back on the deceased out of respect. I don't know why these things always happen to me, but when I used to tell Ernestina (the student of mine whose funeral I was attending) stories of my life and travels, she used to give me a look that seemed to question whether or not I was exaggerating the events.

You see now Ernestina, it's all true. I'm really going to miss you but will always cherish the wonderful memories of our times together and your care and concern for my well-being here in Madrid.

God bless
Linton

SURPRIIIIIIIIISE!!!!!!!

Spam emails are my worst! They are the vermin cockroaches of the cyber-world and I wish that someone would invent a programme that would fumigate them for good. We all get them, and we all hate them. I've had my fair share of offers to purchase bargain properties in Brazil, buy enough dietary supplements to cure world obesity, not to mention hiring the services of private investigators to find out who my spouse is cheating with and have my name removed from Interpol's list of the 'World's Most Wanted'. I've also lost track of how many times, despite never in my life having bought a ticket, I've had the winning numbers to the UK Lottery. And from time to time, I have also been surprised to learn that my Aunty Mable McDaughtry or Mrs Regina Lewis (may they rest in peace), have passed away and left me their mansions and estates in the British Midlands. Normally, the only attention and effort that I afford these emails is to click and delete them, but yesterday I received one that topped them all. It came from Agent Brian Bernstein of the FBI, written on an official FBI letterhead (surprisingly with no spelling and grammar mistakes)... and was sent from the official FBI 'gmail' address. After catching my attention, the email content proved to be even more interesting, as this time, I learned that my Uncle Yusuf Mahmoud Majjib of Kuwait (may he too rest in peace), has also recently passed away, and after much research and investigation, the FBI have tracked me down in Madrid to come collect my inheritance. Uncle Yusuf, God bless him, has left me 450 000 barrels of oil!!! According to my calculations at today's indicators, oil is trading at $111/barrel which means I'm now $49 950 000,00 richer. How could I not reply and say 'Thank you'?

Dear Agent Bernstein,

I have just received and read your email and what a surprise! I'm surprised, and terribly saddened, to hear that Uncle Yusuf has passed away so suddenly, and even more surprised to find out that I actually had an Uncle Yusuf as Ma and Pa never told me that we had family living in Kuwait. I'm equally surprised to hear that Uncle Yusuf has chosen me, above all my other relatives both in South Africa and, er, in Kuwait, to inherit his bounty of 450 000 barrels of oil.

This, however, could not have come at a better time, as me and the Missus are about to retire and now we can fulfill all our wildest retirement dreams. I'm going to surprise her and buy her a big, black Winnebago so we can tour the country. She's always wanted to go to Atlantic City and Yosemite and see Mt. Rushmore and hang-glide over the Grand Canyon. Heck son, with that much oil, I could even drive her down to Texas to see the Alamo.

Oh shoot! Why'm I writing all this out. I forgot to tell you that I too work for the FBI. I'm not a fancy agent like you guys up on the 16th floor, I'm just an admin clerk in HR on the 2nd floor, and surprisingly, I can't seem to find your name on our files. But, tell you what. I'm going to take a quick break and shoot upstairs and see you, so we can chat in person and you can tell me how I can get this oil out of Kuwait.

Yours in anticipation,

Linton Nightingale

PS: Just a heads up. They get pretty sticky and are quite touchy round here about people sending emails on the Agency's letterhead from the Agency's 'gmail' account. It would be a good idea to use the proper server next time.

May you too have a day full of wonderful, pleasant surprises. Remember, the Lord supplies in mysterious ways ... and I hope I'm not placed again on Interpol's list of the 'World's Most Wanted' for impersonating an FBI HR clerk. I knew I shouldn't have deleted that private investigator's email.

God bless

Oh for Pete's sake!

They say 'don't judge a book by its cover'. Well, I don't. I judge the book by its toes. It's a gift that I have. Along with being able to smell if there is or has been a cockroach in a room and also knowing when my mobile is going to ring or receive a message. And it's accurate - in fact, uncannily accurate. Those phalanges of the foot often tell me more than words can say, and I can tell from one glance at them as to whether or not I'm going to get along with someone or not.

I have just returned from having coffee with some of the young adults from church. As it is the summer holidays here and almost all of Madrid has headed for the coast, church is closed until the first weekend of September, and this was one of those gatherings for those of us left behind in the city. Amongst the group of us who met was a guy whose toes I have previously seen, and as such, they have sealed his fate. Sadly, he's one of those kinds who in a short space of time seems to annoy everyone, and therefore suffers constant rejection from people. He just has 'too much' of everything. Too much zeal, is too verbose, too tactile and too demonstrative when he talks, stands too close to you and is way too flaky and 'Christianesy'. On top of that, he just doesn't seem to know when to quit and put a lid on it. While I don't doubt his sincerity, he reminds me of Rachel, this girl I met on the metro in Barcelona who would wake me up at 6am in the morning with a text message to tell me that '1-2-3, Jesus loves you and me!' When he asks you how you are and you say 'fine', he responds with a slap on the on back and says 'absolutamente increible. Diós te bendiga, aleluyah!' (that's absolutely incredible. God bless you, hallelujah!') He was the one who made the call to invite me to the meeting, and while excuses like 'I have tonsilitis' or 'my sugar levels are way too low' came to mind, I feared saying anything as he is a medical student and would undoubtedly pop round and make a house call with his stethoscope dangling round his neck and his little black medical bag in hand. I've heard him pray for someone with a headache before, and he summons Michael and all the warring angels of Heaven to descend from on high and wage war against the inflammation of the meninges membrane. For this blog I'll call him Pedro.

Now all was going surprising well and normal at coffee until we were joined by a very obviously unsaved brother of one of the guys. He was tattooed and pierced from head to toe, had just woken up and was still very much hungover from his Sunday night partying. Pedro felt that now would be an appropriate time to forsake normality, switch personas to the Apostle Paul and take things up a gear by becoming ultra-evangelistic and introducing us as something that sounded like a cult.
"Saludos mi hermano en Cristo y bienvenido a la reunion de la familia de Diós," he said. (Greetings my brother in Christ and welcome to the meeting of the family of God). And thus began Pedro's inquisition of this poor bloke.
The tension was more than blatant on everyone's faces, and knowing what was lying ahead, I have never before so badly wanted to order a double Scotch on the rocks. Despite numerous efforts from all and sundry to change the topic of discussion to sport, the weather, the crisis in Europe and even the Pope's visit, Pedro soldiered on in his attempt to reach the lost, with every sentence ending with a 'bless God, praise God or hallelujah', undeterred by this guy's obvious disinterest and antagonism to the Gospel. Every time this guy tried to make some form of comment, response or statement, Pedro bulldozed over it with some inane or absurd reply. He was on a mission, and he wasn't giving up until he'd saved a soul, got it filled with the Spirit and possibly even baptised in the puddle of water in the gutter left over from last night's storm. It wasn't until he started talking about the possible end of the world in 2012, as predicted by the end of the Mayan calendar, that I thought to myself 'oh for Pete's sake!' and had one of those frozen moments in time, where while in suspended animation, I saw myself stick my hand into Pedro's mouth, grab his tongue and stab it to the table with a fork. Faintly, in the recesses of my mind, I could hear Pedro's voice saying 'today if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart as they did in the days of rebellion', when I was jolted back to reality by everyone's unanimous decision to adjourn the meeting of the 'family of God' and call for the bill. Despite everyone's apologies and excuses for Pedro's behaviour, it seemed that the damage had been done. If that guy ever decided to attend a church I seriously doubt that he would contemplate attending ours.

For all his Christian talk, Pedro makes Christians seem like people who need therapy - shock therapy. People want freedom from being driven, controlled, addicted, enslaved, restless and tormented. They should see that freedom in the peace, the joy, the rest, the contentment and confidence we exude from our lives, and that, coming from Christ. Now I know we are to be the salt of the earth, but sometimes, too much salt actually makes the food unpalatable. While our true life is with Christ in Heaven (Col. 3:1), it's highly advisable that we don't present our earthly Christian life as being from the planet Moronia. Our actions, our attitudes and the ambiance we create can speak a lot louder than words. Those first impressions we create when we meet people are so vital. Small people monopolise the talking, big people monopolise the listening.


"Be first what you want to say." John C. Maxwell

Bystander Apathy!

So are you one of them? One of those people who just stand by and watch something happen to someone else and do nothing to help? One of those people who waits for somebody else to help, or hopes that someone else will help ... as long as it's not you? Well, Madrid is full of them. So is the rest of the world, I guess. Not to mention history itself.

Today was one of those days when a simple 5 minute stroll to the supermarket involved SuperLinton having to come to the aid of 3 different people, because nobody else would. Act of chivalry #1 involved a woman with her baby in pram unable to mount a flight of seven stairs to enter the lobby of her apartment building, because unlike the octopus, she didn't have eight arms with which to pick up her two bags of shopping plus the baby and pram, and get up the stairs. And neither do you or I. I saw her when I was still a way off, and despite being on a busy street, and having seen her ask people for help, they just walked past immersed in their own worlds of texting, chatting, or running to the pedestrian crossing that was currently green, because that was the last time this millenium that that specific traffic light was ever going to be green to cross the road again. So I obliged and in a couple of seconds, the lady was homeward bound, and I was still able to cross the road. And that's where act of chivalry #2 took place.

With the little green man in the traffic light now flashing and beeping, signaling ten seconds to go before the light turned green for the traffic to start moving again, everyone suddenly upped their pace to a maddened trot in order to get to the other side safe and sound before they got run over. This involves a lot of ducking and diving of the 'mind-you're-in-my-way' shoulder barging kind, as people make their charge for safety, and caught in the middle of this pandemonium for the pavement, as well as the middle of the street itself, was a little old lady. Now truthfully, I don't know if she had second thoughts about crossing the road, forgot that she was crossing a road, or was just traumatised by the sudden eruption of mayhem on the zebra crossing, but she was being knocked back and forth like a ping pong ball, and going nowhere fast - other than under a bus. With only a couple of seconds to spare, I managed to work out that she'd been separated from her husband in the crowd and didn't know which way he'd gone. Well neither did I, but with the light now having changed and the bus driver revving at my rear, we needed to get to a side fast, so I made the call and headed to the side with the supermarket. As we approached the pavement, the bus driver, very obviously mumbling obscenities, waved us goodbye with his middle finger. My mind told me that this was an appropriate time for me to do the same and extend my middle finger and also wave him goodbye, but all I managed to do was screw up my nose and stick out my tongue like a five year old as he drove away. Grandpa, incidentally, was already waiting on the pavement. After a happy reunion of much kissing and hugging, and being told what a good boy I was, as well as being told and promoted to the rank of a saint, I resumed my journey to the supermarket. Enter SuperLinton feat #3.

Here was a little boy, very determined to get a box of Oreos off the top shelf. So determined in fact, that he'd actually climbed up the shelves which were now bending very precariously under his weight and obviously about to collapse. Like on the street and on the pedestrian crossing, I was not alone in the shopping aisle, and was certainly not the closest person to the kid, but again people just watched and waited for the shelves to collapse and the aisle to be flooded with boxes of biscuits without doing a thing to help the boy. After walking over and taking both the boy and his biscuits off the shelf, I turned to the couple standing right there with an obvious look of disappointment that I'd thwarted the coming calamity, and gave them a piece of my mind, telling them that it doesn't take much to help someone out.

So, what's the point of all these stories? I don't actually know, but two things come to mind. Firstly, I remember reading an article about the 'Bystander Effect'. In social psychology this is the surprising finding that the mere presence of other people inhibits our own helping behaviours in an emergency. This study's originality comes from the finding that the more people there are present, the longer participants will take to help. This is because everybody waits for someone else to move first. Why don't you be the person that makes the difference, the one who stands out from the crowd. And secondly, we all know that what you sow you reap; what goes around, comes around; what you give you get, etc. One day, some day, any one of us could find ourselves in a situation where we need the help and assistance of someone else. Turning our back on an opportunity to help and make a difference could be a fatal mistake. I'm reminded of something that I read in the book of Judges. In chapter 8 Gideon and his army of 300 men had been chasing the Midianites. They were tired and hungry and when they arrived at the town of Succoth, Gideon asked the elders of the town to give his men some food and rest, but they refused and sent Gideon and his men away. Gideon promised the elders that when he returned he would 'teach them a lesson and tear their flesh with the thorns and briers of the wilderness', and that's exactly what he did. If we don't help out where we can or make a difference where we can, it won't take long before the tables turn, and the thorns and briers of life's experiences could teach us a nasty lesson.

Make a difference for someone - today!