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For Someone Else

Wednesday 14 January 2026 at 07:34
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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Wednesday 4 March 2026 at 16:28

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I have you in my eye

But it is a good thing

[ 7 minute read ]

This is a temporary post until 6:30am today (Thursday 15th January 2026) when it will be replaced by another. 

I wrote a post and published a post yesterday at 6am ( 06:00) but I felt compelled to write another that has much more strength to it.

I have noticed that Jim McCrory who normally likes to post on the Open University Personal Blog site every day, and often two or even three times a day, has not posted recently. I know he is not well, so I shall offer my time and energy to hopefully fill in for him today in his mission to guide lost people towards God. 

Personally, I find his posts both intriguing and irritating. Perhaps I get nudged a little by his God, by my God, and everyone else's God or Gods; I hope so.

I cannot write as well as he, and I know he knows it. We have sometimes not seen eye to eye, but he has always been able to better me when it comes to patience and understanding. I don't mind, in disagreeing with Jim, I am taking on a far greater force who has his back whenever Jim is right. I like that. I like to talk to the organ grinder in my ordinary everyday life. God, your own God, is not the bored person at the other end of the phone when you call customer-service. God, your God, is not the ill-trained person who can't understand your problem and missed the customer-service training. God, your God, does not work for the company out to make themselves richer at your expense. God makes you richer at God's expense. But like things on Earth in the physical world, you have to pay a little into your account, to be able to expect God's help. We always have to take the first step and if it is the right thing to do, God will help us with the other nine-tenths of getting it done; but we cannot stop trying throughout the task or ordeal.

Jim knows his Bible so well, and I know The Bible almost not at all, and I am almost inclined to not reference any Bible, but Jim thinks it is important to qualify his words, so I will spend a little time seeking some quotes to try to match Jim's sentiment and his sense of righteousness.

Let's see. What have I written so far and what bits in the Bible does it remind me of. I know that Jim feels he is guided by God and his writing reflects God's Will, so I shall do as Jim does and pray for a short while for guidance. 

My prayer was short and it is in God's inbox. I have a reply now. I know a piece in the New Testament that 'chimes' with me and matches my words so far. I don't have a fast-track open channel with any Gods; I think I caught the Christian God on a tea-break scrolling through his emails. You definitely shouldn't expect a quick response from God quite simply because in all likelihood. YOU are on a tea-break from reality. You are not ready to pay attention, or have not put in the groundwork that God can use to work with you. 'I pray my family would understand me.' simply won't work on its own; it is missing at least one essential ingredient. Open an avenue of conversation; maybe you need to swallow your pride and apologise, not for something you did, but for something that they think you did. Try to see things from their point of view. Even understanding that they feel bad or offended is essential. I got a quick reply to my prayer just now because I already knew the answer to my question. I won't read you God's email to me, but essentially it says. 'You already have it! Try harder!'

Just remember this if you pray: God is omnipresent and is the Alpha and the Omega; the beginning and the end. That doesn't only mean that God is everywhere, it also means God is every 'when'. It means that God can hear your past prayers, your ongoing prayers, and your future prayers before you even say them and because God is omnipotent can, if God chooses to, change the past, present and future. In this, there is hope. We can never know if the past changed because we change with it. We can never know that the future changed because we are not there to witness it. And the present is now the past, now the past, now the past....

Recognising these two concepts are fundamental in a relationship with God. Change will always start with you and God is on everyone's side in every time and every 'when', including the future.

Don't ever be afraid to talk to God, your God. The Christian God has a wonderful sense of humour and we have laughed many times at my failings, over a brandy and a cigar; but God doesn't drink or smoke so it was just me chilling while God watched and shook a wise head with a wry smile on it.

Anyone who is familiar with my posts would easily recognise that 1 Corinthians 13 v.1-13 is highly instrumental in my life. It doesn't matter if I am a Christian or not. It, however, is not possible for me to not believe in love, and it is not possible for me to not want to be understood. 

From 1 Corinthians 13 verse 1 - 13 (Easy to remember where it is: 1, 13, Corinthians 1, 13)

Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth, now in modern Greece. It is West of Athens and is on the Peloponnese. 

1 'If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophesy and can fathom all the mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love. I am nothing. 

3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 

11 When I was a child, I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.'

The Holy Bible New International Version (NIV)

I didn't write about God today because I love Jim and want to help him do what he sees as his duty to his God; to tell people about God. I didn't write this because I follow God and make myself His instrument. I get to choose what I do with my life. I can listen to God or not. What I cannot do is intentionally ignore doing something I had a notion was, or is, the right thing to do. Christians might say that our conscience is a manifestation of our communication with our Gods; philosophers say otherwise.

If a man or woman struggles to cross the road for some reason, only the most callous and selfish person does not stop to help them. Perhaps though, God does not speak to them, or they simply cannot hear any God. But as Jim would, I think, say, God does not shout for attention. God is a comfort and is soothing. God is soft and firm as well. God provides a place to stand still and relax; a place where we can let things go and, refreshed and free from unwieldy burden, we can endure what our lives throw at us with patience and perseverance.

I hope I have carried some of Jim's burden today. The person in the paragraph above might be trying to cross the road to help someone who needs them. My efforts are paid forward to help the lost, with thanks to Jim for showing me both 'putting my shoulder to the plough' and perseverance.

  • 'putting one's shoulder to the plough' is a largely archaic phrase that means to do the necessary work by assisting the ox or horse team pulling the plough in the days before farmers got tractors; literally pushing the plough when the terrain or 'going' got difficult.

Tags: burden, God, love is kind, help others
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Shadows and strange feelings

Saturday 22 February 2025 at 14:12
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Edited by Martin Cadwell, Tuesday 15 April 2025 at 20:50

Blog address for all the posts: https://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/oublog/view.php?u=zw219551

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A while ago, I was asked how I would portray a feeling of there being something else; something more than just being born, living for a while, and then dying; a life that is no better than the lives of intellectual animals.


Sixth Sense

Recently, I was fortunate to be party to an hour long telephone conversation, with someone I have great respect for. We discussed mental health; work environments; comprehension; and channels of communication. In a wonderful previous conversation, we had hovered around the notion of prescience and sixth sense, and I was keen to revisit this topic. I commented that her voice was different this time. Those of you who understand that when our primary sense (sight) is absent there is an idea that our other senses compensate, might also know that if we lose just a tiny part of our outer ear we find the location of a sound to be difficult. Eventually, if the new shape of the outer ear is permanent, we compensate sufficiently well to be almost entirely sure which direction a sound comes from. Our sense of hearing really is very sensitive and very special.

I explained that I had poor and uncorrected vision for decades and as a result listen for nuances in voices probably more than most people. We realised quite soon that we, as humans, pick up on other people’s emotions quite quickly. I suggested that in the absence of face-to-face meetings we are not distracted by body-language, which many psychologists regard as a figurative ‘shout’ of veracity. You can say yes and shake your head at the same time, and almost everyone perceives you ‘saying’, No.

I suggested that in the absence of hearing we have to use abilities of perception that we rarely pay attention to. In effect, we move towards a liminal position of understanding;  

        ‘Right on the threshold of physical and spiritual being’, I said.

        ‘Sixth sense’, she replied.

        ‘Rather like our spirits holding up a banner behind us that says something like, ‘Be gentle, I am hurting.’


I don’t read the Bible much any more, but I do recall that there are a few verses that, for me, speak of a realisation that the writer of those verses believes that he has discovered something beyond himself. Paul wrote to the Christians in Corinth.

From, 1 CORINTHIANS 13 v. 11 – 12 (NIV)

Available online at: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%2013&version=NIV

11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.


Love is patient

This is from the well-known piece on love, which is highly recommended to all. From the same source of 1 Corinthians 13:

3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.


In answer to the question I was asked many years ago, on there being something else, I wrote:


Two silhouetted men either side of text reading, Half Penny Stories


Spirits with banners

- start -

This conversation was beginning to irritate me.

       ‘I rather think that I may inadvertently be bordering on trying to persuade you to change your views on morality and utilitarianism and nudging you towards an acceptance of a truth. Not unlike taking the red or blue pill in The Matrix. But whose truth?’, I pressed.

Mark’s face didn’t change from his usual mask of implacability, but he did look down for a while, then left and right at the fallen and dismembered bodies we had found. He paused for a while, his mouth open; long enough for one of the local flies to land on his lower lip. His sharp in-breath sucked it in. He rolled it with his tongue and spat, though somewhat languidly.

       ‘I also feel that there is no doubt that something or someone is, and has been, whispering so loudly and for so long that the constant susurration has become part of our background noise.’

       ‘Yet’, I offered, ‘if you found yourself suddenly on a planet on which all the people are born blind and only you could see, would you tell them about birds? The blind people might hear wing-beats as the birds fly away before the birds are touched by the people; so those people can never know the bird’s shape or how they move, because they cannot catch one, aside of accidentally, and it may take them millennia to understand the purpose of birds.'

Mark pondered my words. I went on.

        'I think you would not!' If they know about birds, they would fear their own shadows when someone might later tear away another veil that is a bar to comprehension. Being blind, all they can know of shadows is a cooler temperature where they lie.

I saw Mark had grasped my meaning. He slowly nodded as he finished my words for me.

        'Their simplest reasoning would have them living uncomplicated lives with thoughts of how, to perhaps, till the land and work together for their mutual survival. Who cares if an observer is a flock of birds, and the designers are shadows on a planet with a simple population?’

One or two of the spirits standing by their still-living charges stared at us. Their banners flickered 'Help' and nonsense; the letters changing like old analogue airport departure notices when an event has changed the timetable, except their letters were more like crude brushstrokes.  When the letters eventually faded to nothing they gave a final glance at the bodies and left to form a group where they fell into conversation. A few looked, wistfully, over their shoulders at us. I recognised one of them.

- end -

The point in the above written piece is that both the characters are aware of something else, and even the gore and violence of death is not sufficient to be considered to be greater in impact than that inherent feeling we have of there being something else we just cannot quite see or touch. The point is that they are ignoring their primary senses and are focusing only on thinking and communicating ideas.





Tags: sixth sense, love is patient, love is kind, spirits with banners, characters, story characters, shadows, perception, half penny stories
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