Profiling a villain

“I hadn’t been driving long when I felt what I thought was a bug fluttering around my left leg and ankle. I tried to brush it away, but it persisted. With my eyes on the road , I leaned down again to shoo it away, only to feel something much larger than an insect against my hand. Looking down, I saw the head and about 10 to 15 centimetres, of a snake. We had somehow picked up a passenger.”

‘The Biyamati Stowaway’ by Gordon Parratt, from ‘101 Kruger Tales’

Kruger National Park BaboonA shriek came from a nearby cottage. Then we heard the crash of crockery shattering on a stone floor. A man shouted and swore in German.

Within seconds a large male baboon bounded onto the lawn in front of our cottage. He looked back a few times towards the last shouts of the angry German, then settled down on the grass. Continue reading Profiling a villain

One More Fact

“He read the words again, holding his candle close to the frame, to light them. Then he went to the table, opened his bottle of ink, turned to a clean page in his journal, dipped his pen and wrote: ‘January 27th 1898: At St Matthias Mission there is an odd sense of predestination …’ He looked up and gazed a moment at the text on the wall, returned to the page and added, ‘It is strange how strongly I feel it. What it is I do not know, but I shall leave before it takes me in. I shall leave before I am its victim.”

Shades by Marguerite Poland

ShadesSo the story goes, a family worked in Asia as missionaries for OMF (Overseas Missionary Fellowship). They lived and served among the Asian people in a small community, becoming quite close to many of them. One day a woman they knew well and had spent much time with, turned on them in an angry tirade. She said things that were untrue and hurtful and their relationship with her seemed to be broken.

The family were devastated. It had taken many months, even years, to build trust in the community. Now it was ruined. Continue reading One More Fact

Conflict and the art of burying your head in the sand … and missing out on life

“People were buying milk, or filling their cars with petrol, or even posting letters. And what no one else knew was the appalling weight of the thing they were carrying inside. The superhuman effort it took sometimes to be normal, and a part of things that appeared both easy and everyday. The loneliness of that.”

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“Harold could no longer pass a stranger without acknowledging the truth that everyone was the same, and also unique; and that this was the dilemma of being human.”

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

The potpourri huntDo you love or hate conflict?

Dr Carol Dweck’s ‘Mindset’ suggests that conflict is essential for growth.

All my life I’ve avoided conflict. I grew up in a happy family where conflict was avoided as a rule. In fact, from my father’s perspective any disagreement was personal and would turn into a fight where the opposing opinion was preferably quashed. For the most part this was fine because we really did have a somewhat idyllic, happy family life and carefree upbringing. Continue reading Conflict and the art of burying your head in the sand … and missing out on life