Peace Child

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Imman′u-el. (Isaiah 7:14)

For to us a child is born!
to us a son is given!
and the government will be upon his shoulder,
and his name will be called
“Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  (Isaiah 9:6)

Christmas is upon us again and it is a time to reflect on the miracle of the birth of Christ.  A miracle not just because it was a virgin birth but also because it speaks of God’s amazing love for fallen mankind.  It is a miracle that God’s Son came into our world to live amongst us and to ultimately lay down  his life for us.

But it does seem so unbelievable.  Why would God do such a thing?  It is not something that a self centered and selfish world can easily understand.

When I ponder about this, I am reminded of the true story of Don and Caroline Richardson.  They were missionaries who, in 1962, went to live amongst the cannibalistic head-hunting Sawi peoples in remote Irian Jaya, Indonesia.  They lived there learning the Sawi language and their customs, providing medical services and befriending them.  They desired to share about Jesus and the good news of God but found it difficult in a culture that elevates warfare and treachery.   For example, when they told the Sawi about Jesus being arrested and crucified after being betrayed by Judas, the Sawi clapped and cheered for Judas as he was seen to be cunning in his treachery.

How to make them understand why Jesus came and what he did?  God would show the Richardsons the way.

The Sawi had a way of making peace and that involved the warriors of the two warring tribes lining up facing  each other.  In the ceremony witnessed by the Richardsons, the chief of one tribe then took his first born infant son from the baby’s distraught  mother and walked down the line of his warriors.  The warriors placed their hands on the child as he passed by.

The chief then handed his son to the chief of the opposing tribe who takes the child down his line of warriors.  They to place their hands on the child in an act of affirmation and then the whole war party leaves with the child.

From that moment on, the child will live in the other tribes village and as long as he lives, there will be peace between the two villages.  If he is harmed, the person who harmed him would be killed.  It is the act of sacrifice by the first chief that secures the peace through his son, the Peace Child.

Don Richardon explains during an interview;

“When [my wife] Caroline and I lived among the Sawi and learned their language, we found that they honored treachery as a virtue. This came to light when I told them the story of Judas betraying Jesus to death after three years of friendship. They acclaimed Judas as the hero of the story. It seemed as if it would not be easy for such a people to understand God’s redemption in Jesus.

But lo and behold, their way of making peace required a father in one of two warring villages to make an incredible sacrifice. He had to be willing to give one of his own children as a peace child to his enemies.

Caroline and I saw this happen, and we saw the peace that resulted from a man’s wonderful sacrifice of his own son. That enabled me to proclaim Jesus as the greatest peace child given by the greatest father.”

So this Christmas, may we reflect on what it meant for God to send His son into the world and what it means to us all to receive the greatest Peace Child.

This world is so in need of peace.  Peace with God and peace between men.

 

Poorphoria – Disease and Cure

Discovering Poorphoria

Regular readers will know that the Lone Grey Squirrel is still waiting for his Nobel Prize for Science and Medicine.   But have I received that life-changing call from the Nobel Committee? Nope, I got nothing. Nada. Zilch. Nichts. Not a sausage!

And you know, being a Microbiologist, it isn’t easy to get selected……..you gotta find a new disease.    So with a bit of hard work, you find a new disease.  You hope that you don’t catch it in the process and with a bribe bit of luck you get selected by the Nobel Prize committee.  If you are really, really lucky, they don’t name the disease after you.

Anyway, I am very excited.  I think my time has come with my discovery of “Poorphoria” ( pôr-fahy-ree-uh).

Scientific breakthroughs are often made on the back of other discoveries and my “eureka’ moment came due to the excellent research into a related illness ……….. “affluenza”.

In the now famous case, a 16 year old from Texas, stole some booze, drove 70 mph in a 40 mph zone with a blood alcohol level three times the legal adult limit and caused a fatal accident that left four people dead and two others severely injured.

At his trial, the defence contended that the teen whose wealth and pampered upbringing prevented him from learning right from wrong and recognising the consequences of his actions.   As such he was not responsible for his actions because he suffered from “affluenza”.

Giving recognition to this “disease” the judge  sentenced the teen to 10 years probation and rehab at a special centre for which his parents will pay USD450,000 per year.

Poorphoria is a similar disease that strikes the very poor.  Because poorphoria sufferers have grown up in abject want and poverty, it is certainly not their fault that they then resort to crime to get what they have been denied in their childhood.  Furthermore, it is a disease with a very simple treatment.  Just give the patient USD 450,000 and he will be cured!

Poverty equals crime.  Give money, then no more poverty and therefore no more crime. No more poorphoria.  Q.E.D.

EDITOR’s NOTE: Despite the use of humor and sarcasm here to highlight the tragic farce, the Lone Grey Squirrel is actually very saddened by the incident that have occurred and grieves for those that have been killed and injured.  He also grieves for the legal system that has enabled such bizarre decisions to be delivered.

Nelson Mandela Free at Last

Nobody is perfect.  But if the world ever needed a hero to look up to, Nelson Mandela comes pretty close to being a perfect one.  A great politician, tactician, leader – we have heard all these accolades used to describe him.  But most of all, he was a great human being.  He spoke with his words and showed with his actions and his life, compassion, forgiveness and reconciliation.  He gave South Africans a better future than anyone could have imagined coming out of the chaos of apartheid.

Yesterday, he passed away at the age of 95 and it was a loss felt around the world.  Yet as I watched the news on the television, I am taken up by the fact that South Africans are gathering together, singing and dancing in the streets.  They are celebrating the wonderful life of a wonderful man and the wonderful legacy he has left his country and the world. Tony Blair said that Mandela “made racism seem somehow stupid”.   One of my heroes has passed on but I join everyone else in celebrating him.  May he be resting in peace with his creator.

Below is the song “Free Nelson Mandela” by The Specials. The lyrics include these lines;

Free Nelson Mandela

21 years in captivity
Shoes too small to fit his feet
His body abused, but his mind is still free
You’re so blind that you cannot see

Free Nelson Mandela

 

May I invite you to dance along in celebration.

 

Rubbing Wings Slowly

Warning!!  This is an early Christmas post!  Well, at least I waited till it was  December.

One of the cute things about my wife is that she heckles crickets!   Yup, she just can leave the little critters alone.  On occasion when we are walking in the countryside in the cool of the evenings, we would come across a chorus of crickets chirping.  The sound can be quite loud and in the relative quiet of the evening it is the most prominent sound to reach the ears.  Instead of just enjoying the natural sounds, my wife would always flash a mischievous smile and then she would ‘chirp”.

“Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!” goes my wife enthusiastically.

Then something amazing always happens;  ……………all the crickets stop chirping ……..completely…………just stunned silence!  You have to be there to really appreciate the sudden drop from cricket crescendo to stunned silence.   Well, just total silence really.  I say “stunned silence” because I always imagine the little insects stop rubbing their wings  (rubbing wings is how they produce the chirping sound) and sitting there on their blades of grass with their jaws dropped!

I can only imagine what goes through their minds.

Theory 1:  They think; “My, my, that is the most beautiful cricket voice I have ever heard!” (not likely!) .

Theory 2: They think, “Wow! That is really, really bad ….. an off-key ….. an plain awful!” (more likely)

Theory 3:  They think, “Surely, that’s a bird or a frog  trying to pretend that he is a cricket to get a quick meal.  Better keep quiet so he doesn’t know where I am.” (even more likely).

But just this week, I discovered this video below and I hope after my wife sees it, she will stop heckling the creatures.

Doesn’t that sound like a heavenly choir?  So that’s my early Christmas post!

Now, it seems that this was recorded by an American American musician, Jim Wilson, in the 1990’s.  It was used  on the album Medicine Songs as the track “Ballad of the Twister Hair.”   There are supposed to be two tracks superimposed on each other; the first is the cricket chirp at normal speed and the second is the same slowed down.  It is claimed that the melodious chorus sound was produced by slowing down a recording of chirping crickets by more than 800 times.  This was said to be done as crickets live their life in high speed with a  lifespan that is approximately 800 times shorter than that of a human.  In the liner notes it is explained;  “Though it may sound like a synthesizer or a chorus singing; it’s the crickets themselves slowed way down, creating the effect of a choir of human voices. The sound created is a simple diatonic 7-note scale chord progression and melody with a multi-layered structure.”

Skeptics doubt that this sound could have been accomplished just by slowing down the natural crickets’ sound.  Attempts have been made to reproduce it.  Some musicians have tried to reproduce the sound without crickets and have failed.  Others have made their own attempts to slow down recordings of cricket chirps.  The latter found some of the sounds were reproducible but found the sounds more repetitive than the flowing choral sound in Jim Wilson’s recording.    One theory is that it really is the sound of crickets slowed down but not purely from just that and that the melodic choral element may have resulted from some secondary manipulation of the sound.  The debate continues and you can check it out at Snopes.