And what a long journey that can be Alex, when one has pockets that are miserably short of the currency of one's choice but a wallet full of the old legal tender.
--Previous Message--
: Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try
: Again. Fail again. Fail better. ~ Samuel
: Beckett
:
: A recently deceased primary school teacher
: never discussed his war time service with
: his pupils, preferring to concentrate on the
: present rather than dwell in the past where
: many unhappy memories were buried.
:
: Taken prisoner in Singapore, Private
: Reynolds of the Royal Army Service Corps
: became an unlikely carer of the sick, and
: dying incarcerated in inhumane conditions.
: With Japan's star waning Private Reynolds
: was herded into a merchant ship bound for
: Japan when on entering port during a typhoon
: the ship struck rocks forcing the crew, and
: prisoners to abandon ship. Having survived
: the grounding Private Reynolds was
: transferred to working long, backbreaking
: hours at a steel plant where conditions
: guaranteed a premature death for many of his
: fellow prisoners.
:
: With liberation Private Reynolds returned to
: the UK plunging into further education,
: including a teacher training course that led
: him to invest all he had learnt from
: suffering imposed by his fellow man, into
: assisting children how best to cope with
: apparent failure, and how to respond
: constructively to feelings of hopelessness
: when all appears lost.
:
: “Experience: that most brutal of teachers.
: But you learn, my God do you learn.”―
: C.S. Lewis
:
: Just a few years before his death Chariton
: Reynolds visited Singapore, and Japan to pay
: homage to his former comrades in arms whom
: he had helped to bury, and to forgive those
: who were so brutal in their treatment of
: their fellow man.
:
: Through our journey of self discovery we
: learn never to repay with the same coin,
: those whose behaviour taught us never to
: imitate.
:
: Romans 8:24-26 For in this hope we were
: saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope.
: For who hopes for what he sees? But if we
: hope for what we do not see, we wait for it
: with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us
: in our weakness. For we do not know what to
: pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself
: intercedes for us with groanings too deep
: for words.
:
: end
:
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