Holy Week Reading: Alex Boraine, A Life in Transition

Shortly after the terror attack on the World Trade Centre in New York City, I was startled to read in our local press:

The Star, Johannesburg, Sept 14, 2001 (AFP) - South Africans living and working  in downtown New York gave accounts Friday of narrow escapes after the attacks on the United States, but officials said no South African death toll could yet be given....   Witnesses to the tragedy included Alex Boraine, former  co-chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), set up in 1996 to deal with apartheid atrocities. Boraine, who now heads the International Centre for Transitional  Justice based on the 33rd floor of a building opposite the WTC, told the The Star he left the building and was about 500 metres (yards) away when the first tower of the WTC collapsed.  "We were running for our lives with this huge cloud pouring down  between the buildings like lava, black and white smoke, cement, dust, smothering everything," he said.

I had met Dr Boraine before. It gave that tragic event an immediacy as if I were there myself.

Alex Boraine relates that harrowing experience again in his A Life in Transition. So I consciously decided this year, for Holy Week, to read Dr Boraine's autobiography. Not only did the title seem theologically appropriate for Good Friday and Easter but the title was also so personally relevant. I was in transition too.

I wasn't disappointed. Dr Boraine covers familiar territory that resonated with me. Others will too, especially those who like Dr Boraine, responded to a call of God. His early boyhood and "humble beginnings" struck more than just a chord within me. As someone interested in family stories and histories his childhood experiences and influences more than fascinated me. Of course those who have experienced a call to the Methodist ministry in particular will identify with his sometimes humorous account of candidating, of probation, serving congregations with familiar names and attitudes, and the unforgettable formative years of academic training and social life at Rhodes University. It will appeal to many a minister. Many will relate to his progressive realisation that things were not right in South Africa. How naïve we were in our evangelical zeal. Some will know what it meant to be under Security Police (BOSS) surveillance and to be loved and sometimes vilified by the very people and leaders one was called to serve and shepherd. Many older South Africans will recognise familiar names and places. Once I supplied at Klerksdorp Methodist where the Rev Boraine was previously a probationer minister and still remembered. Today I worship at Durban North Methodist from where the Rev Boraine left to study at Oxford. He left his mark on many a congregation and through his work in the Youth Department impacted the lives of countless young people.

Dr Boraine recounts his election in 1971 to the highest office in the Methodist Church to become President of the Methodist Conference. For me that was also providential. Thereafter, seconded to industry, he became increasingly involved in opposition politics and was elected to Parliament. After a visit by a delegation from the Church to clarify his position as a minister, he writes: "I received a letter informing me that I was no longer 'a minister in good standing'. Frankly, it didn't worry me, because I didn't feel I needed to be an ordained minister, or use the title of 'reverend' in order to do the work that I felt was important and urgent." However, one senses his deep disappointment. One ponders what if it had been different?

The rest is history...the name Alex Boraine will remain forever imprinted in the dramatic story of transition in South Africa. His contribution nationally toward a peaceful transformation to democracy in South Africa as politician, negotiator, and facilitator especially as Deputy Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission together with the Chairman, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was historic. And internationally too, as the Founding President of the esteemed International Centre for Transitional Justice. This honest testimony of a young man once called by God to be an "agent of change" will challenge all people in transition not least of all the Church he once headed.

I have no close personal connections with Alex Boraine other than that it was on the 1st November 1971 that Dr Alex Boraine, the then President of the Methodist Conference, wrote me confirming that he had designated me in 1972 to go to South West Africa (now Namibia) as a "Presidentially Appointed Candidate". "I do hope that this will be a very exciting and creative year for you," he wrote. My very first appointment and acceptance into the Methodist Church of Southern Africa came from the Rev Dr Alex Boraine. The following year, 1973, the Methodist Conference accepted me as a Probationer Minister and moved us back from Walvis Bay to Bedfordview. It was the 50th Anniversary of the Bedfordview Methodist Church. The Bedfordview Leaders invited Dr Boraine to be our guest "50th Anniversary Preacher". That was the first and only time we met.

Reading Dr Boraine's  autobiography, I am challenged by two somewhat disturbing thoughts:

First, in the context of the Good Friday events, I ask myself, where was justice and fundamental human rights exercised in the trial of Jesus, two thousand years ago? Was there transitional justice? One could say Easter Sunday speaks to that!

Second, acutely aware that the broader South African Church is grappling within itself with its own basic rights issues... equity issues; parity of stipends and pensions issues; gender issues; sexual orientation issues; just deployment issues;  inter-faith relationship issues; refugee issues; etc....  I wonder, is there not a crying, desperate need for transitional justice and transformation within the Church too if there is ever ultimately going to be healing for our Land?

Past President of the Methodist Conference, Dr Alex Boraine, continues to challenge the conscience of  both Church and Nation. It did me this Holy Week!

I heartily commend A Life in Transition!

For more on "Transitional Justice" see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_justice



©Colin G Garvie
HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

First Love (continued) - Programming and Pilgrimages

I still cannot get my mind round those amazing 16K SDS 920's we used for telemetry processing at NASA's Tracking Stations during the 1960's. So much achieved by so little! They were lean, mean machines! It was there too that I was first introduced to computer programming. Following on my previous post I need to share and document  my own indebtedness to the various computer programming languages that were undoubtedly, subtle, transforming agents in my life. In many respects a programmer's life is affected and effected by the languages he engages with.

At the Tracking Station we didn't have dedicated programmers. By virtue of the critical nature of the work, engineers and technicians responsible for the maintenance and repair of equipment also needed to know how to program and operate the computers. My initial exposure to programming was somewhat elementary. This evolved. Later, on entering the ministry with no access to computers I went into a barren digital wilderness for almost ten years. Then came the advent of the personal computer. A past professional interest became an enduring pastime. It progressed from low level to high level "Fourth Generation Language" (4GL) programming. Then I was suddenly thrust once again back, full time, into software development. It was a major transition from a pastoral charge to computerised accounting, a field I knew nothing about.  Much of life evolves that way too, from the simple to the sophisticated, from the known to the unknown, from the exoteric to the esoteric. Transitions!

Programming languages are really just vehicles to supply abstractions to programmers. People think of programming languages as being good or bad for a given purpose, but they are really criticizing the abstractions that a language embodies. The progress in programming languages has been incredibly slow because new programming languages are difficult to create and even more difficult to get adopted. When you have a new programming language, the users have to rewrite their legacy code and change their skills to accommodate the language. So, basically, new programming languages can come about only when there is an independent revolution that justifies the waste of the legacy, such as Unix which gave rise to C, or the Web which gave rise to Java. Yet it's not the languages that are of value, but only the abstractions that the languages carry. - Charles Simonyi (The Edge) quoted "Philosophy of Programming Languages", http://pcs.essex.ac.uk/pls.html

Some of my friends are interested in the history of computing so a brief introduction to each is not out of place here. Those not technically minded may skip to the foot of the blog!

Machine Code http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_code
This was the most fundamental and primitive means of programming to which I was first introduced, manually coding in binary instructions on a 24 button and display console. No monitor. Just a bank of buttons and lights into which one could punch in code and values step by step and then run it. Even this was tedious for the simplest routine. This was eased somewhat by other input/output devices such as a typewriter or punch tape but these were relatively primitive compared to modern peripheral devices. As technician my objective was simply diagnostic, programming for fault finding.

Symbol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_language
"SYMBOL  is a  two-pass  assembler language for  the  SDS 900  series  and  9300  computers.   It was  designed to  operate on  a  minimal  4K  computer with  at least one  symbolic  input device  and at least one  output  device" (SDS 900 Series Symbol Technical Manual, SDS 900688A March 1965). This gave us the capability to do a little more than just diagnosis. One was enabled to be more versatile and analytic.

FORTRAN http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran
One of the earliest computer languages, FORTRAN (an acronym for FORmula TRANslator) was designed to handle mathematical operations especially in scientific and engineering fields. It was ideally suited for our field of work.  Initially FORTRAN was unable to handle text manipulations of any sort, and could just barely place quoted text in its printed output. It also ran on a 4K SDS. With its mathematical functions one was now able to move from investigation to real-time application and data interpretation. Naturally this meant a paradigm shift as well.

Then came the period of my "Digital Doldrums". I had left the tracking station to enter pastoral ministry. However, with the advent of the IBM PC and later Desktop computers, I had access to computers once again. I graduated to more user friendly developers:

BASIC http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_programming_language
The Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, BASIC, was the first interpreted language made available for general use on PCs. It is now in such widespread use that most people see and use this language before they deal with others. It has changed over time, and is now most commonly seen as Visual Basic in a Windows environment.

Pascal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal_Programming_Language
Named after Blaise Pascal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blaise_Pascal), a French Catholic theologian and philosopher, mathematician, and physicist, Pascal was specifically designed as a teaching language. Its object was to force the student to correctly learn the techniques and requirements of structured programming. It was a process of conditioning, to think in a particular way.

The shift from a scientific to an ecclesiastical environment also meant a shift to database related languages with a focus on people both as a collective, the ecclesia, as well as seeing persons as individually unique and special. BASIC and Pascal complimented my hobbies in astronomy and amateur radio whereas the database languages opened up new application areas in church membership management and genealogical related programs:

dBase http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBase
Interestingly, dBase had its roots at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories too. It was developed by C. Wayne Ratliff who was a contractor at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. dBase II became the first most popular database management system (DBMS). My first dBase applications involved Scottish IGI birth and marriage family records and library management.

Clipper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_%28programming_language%29
Clipper was a programming language and compiler for the widely used dBase III database systems. As with other DOS based languages Clipper and dBase evolved from a sequential to Objected Oriented Programming languages.

SQL http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SQL
Structured Query Language or SQL was developed by IBM and by the late 1970s a version was available for the IBM PC. It has become a popular database management language.


Interested in Artificial Intelligence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_Intelligence) and Information Theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_Theory) led to new avenues. These were interests engendered already during my early years at the Tracking Station. So for a while when opportunity allowed, I also dabbled with:

Prolog http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prolog
A very popular logic, artificial intelligence programming language. My interest was limited mainly to interrogating birth, marriage, and death registers for finding genealogical and family tree relationships. But the pursuit was short lived as new demands fell upon me.

Finally, after fifteen years in pastoral administration, when I was deployed to our denominational head office where a conversion from a Unix, COBOL based system to a Novell/DOS platform was underway I had to acquaint myself with the newly implemented Clarion for DOS and eventually Clarion for Windows Rapid Application Developers (RAD). At the same time programming technology was moving from structured to Object Oriented Programming (OOP) methodologies  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming). Clarion for windows provided for both. This meant for me a major shift in programming approach and thinking processes.

Clarion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarion_Programming_Language
Clarion was implemented at our denominational headquarters in 1991. It is one of the more sophisticated dedicated business application, large database developers available today. One of Clarion's unique features was its pioneering work in template methodologies. The language continues to keep abreast with new technologies. Whether Clarion will maintain this role or whether it goes the way of past languages yet remains to be seen. But it cannot be discounted just yet. I was intrigued by its longevity and ability to evolve and incorporate new advances compared to some of the older dinosaurs. Sadly my own sixteen year professional relationship with Clarion came to an end once I went into retirement but the language itself continues to live on.

Each new programming language represents a stage not only in technological development but also, for the programmer, a stage in personal development and psychological growth. That gives programming languages, as with human languages, a spiritual and psychic dimension! For instance, the transition from structured to object orientated programming represented for me a transition from an Aristotelian to a Platonic worldview.  Discrete functions and routines were now in a way seen to be manifestations of platonic ideas, forms and archetypes. Initially programming for me, involved engaging hands on with man-made machines which later developed into the stewardship of records and relationships with living human beings. Interestingly Clarion embodies both models, "loud and clear" and accommodates happily with SQL, for instance. This journey has been a progression from the material to the spiritual, from task to abstractions, from the profane to the sacred. I pay tribute to the languages so formative in my life. Every journey is a pilgrimage. Therefore the Scallop Shell!

See also:
"Philosophy of Programming Languages, Online and offline resources", http://pcs.essex.ac.uk/pls.html
"Ancient Philosophy and Programming Languages" by cyocum (Curate), http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=349593


©Colin G Garvie
HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

First Love - The Principle of First Engagement

No, this isn't about human romance. Nor is it a theological reflection. Or is it? It certainly is about tenacity and virtue.

Remember your first bicycle or motor car? Or the excitement you had with your very first camera? I am thinking about my very first engagement and love affair with computers, with the Scientific Data Systems 910 and 920. I courted them for seven years from 1965 to 1971 during my time at the Hartebeeshoek Tracking Station. See photo! These were the modest main frames installed at all the NASA Deep Space Network (DSN) facilities around the world. I say modest, because, though state of the art back then, compared to the average home desktop computer today they were very modest indeed! Though slow and awkward they were nevertheless indispensable links in the chain that would eventually put people on the Moon.

For the technically minded, the 920 specifications:

The  SDS  920  is  a  high-speed,  low-cost,  general-purpose digital  computer  with  the  following  characteristics:
24-bit  word  plus  parity  bit
Basic  Core memory  4,096 words  expandable to  16,384 words,  all  addressable
Parity  checking of all  memory  and  input/output operations
Memory  non-volatile  with  power  failure
FORTRAN  II  and  Symbolic  Assembler  as  part of  complete software  package
All  silicon  semiconductors
Dimensions:   66"  x  48"  x  27"
Power: IIOV,  60  cps,  10  amps
Input/Output:
Standard:
30G  character/second Paper  Tape  Reader
60  character/second Paper  Tape  Punch
Automatic  Typewriter
Dual-channel  Priority  Interrupt
Display  and manual  control  of  internal  registers
Optional:
Magnetic  Tape  Systems  (IBM  compatible)
Line  Printer
Direct communication  with  I ~ 7090,  A/D converters,  etc.

Much of this success was due to the use of silicon-based transistors in their earliest designs, the 24-bit SDS 910 and SDS 920 which included a hardware (integer) multiplier. These are arguably the first commercial systems based on silicon, which offered much better performance for no real additional cost. Additionally the SDS machines shipped with a selection of software, notably a FORTRAN compiler, developed by Digitek, that made use of the systems' Programmed OPeratorS (POPS), and could compile, in 4K 24-bit words, programs in a single pass without the need for magnetic tape secondary storage. For scientific users writing small programs, this was a real boon and dramatically improved development turnaround time. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Data_Systems

Oh wow!

The first SDS 910/920's were ordered and built in 1962 and some continued in use as late as 1985. Functionally, the SDS computers took data received from the spacecraft and formatted and recorded it on magnetic tape. A computer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory  in Pasadena processed the data further.

When I left Hartebeeshoek to enter the ministry, I was presented with a book, This Island Earth, (NASA 1970). It was inscribed with the words, "With best wishes from the 920's" and signed by the Telemetry and Command Processing Staff of DSIF-51. It is a book I treasure to this day, a memento of a first love.

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
                                        - Paul Simon
References:
Wikipedia, Scientific Data Systems, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Data_Systems
Allen Kent and James G. Williams (Ed), Computers in Spaceflight: The NASA Experience,
Douglas J. Mudgway, Uplink-Downlink: A History of the Deep Space Network,

©Colin G Garvie
HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

Evolution and Metamorphosis - an Easter Reflection

Two influential writers come together in an extraordinary way in a story that Jean Houston relates in her autobiography, A Mythic Life. She tells (p.142) of befriending an elderly man in Central Park, New York. Unable to pronounce his name, she called him "Mr Tayer". Mr Tayer asked her...

"Jeanne, can you feel yourself to be a caterpillar?"

"Oh, yes," I replied with the baleful knowing of a gangly, pimply-faced teenager.

"Then think of your own metamorphosis," he suggested. "What will you be when you become a butterfly. Un papillon, eh? What is the butterfly of Jeanne?"

What a great question for a fourteen-year-old girl, a question of puberty rites, initiations into adulthood, and other new ways of being. His comic-tragic face nodded helpfully until I could answer.

"I...don't really know anymore, Mr Tayer."

"Yes, you do know. It is inside of you, like the butterfly is inside the caterpillar." He then used a word that I heard for the first time, a word that became essential to my later work. "What is the entelechy of Jeanne? A great word, a Greek word, entelechy. It means the dynamic purpose that is coded in you. It is the entelechy of this acorn on the ground to be an oak tree. It is the entelechy of that baby over there to be a grown-up human being. It is the entelechy of the caterpillar to undergo metamorphosis and become a butterfly. So what is the butterfly, the entelechy of Jeanne? You know, you really do."

That is Jean Houston's (b. May 10, 1937) teenage encounter with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (May 1, 1881 - April 10, 1955). Two thinkers who have affected me intensely: Teilhard de Chardin the paleantologist priest and Jean Houston the transformational psychologist. In Houston's story we have the coincidence of evolution and transformation: metamorphosis!

Shortly before passing away on the 10th April 1955 Teilhard said, "If in my life I haven't been wrong, I beg God to allow me to die on Easter Sunday". April 10 was Easter Sunday.

A glow ripples outward from the first spark of conscious reflection. The point of ignition grows larger. The fire spreads in ever widening circles till finally the whole planet is covered with incandescence. - Teilhard de Chardin

For more see:
Teilhard de Chardin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Teilhard_de_Chardin
The Phenomenon of Man
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phenomenon_of_Man









Jean Houston
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Houston











©Colin G Garvie
HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

Blue Marble. Still my favourite NASA photograph...

This incredible NASA photograph of the Earth with its spectacular view of Africa is one of my favourites. It was the view of the Earth as seen by the Apollo 17 crew as they travelled toward the moon in December 1972. I was in the Namib Desert at the time. The photo extends from the Mediterranean and the Holy Land all the way to Antarctica. This was the first time the Apollo trajectory made it possible to photograph the south polar ice cap.

Welcome to Planet Earth, the third planet from a star named the Sun. The Earth is shaped like a sphere and composed mostly of rock. Over 70 percent of the Earth's surface is water. The planet has a relatively thin atmosphere  composed mostly of nitrogen and oxygen. The above picture of Earth, dubbed Blue Marble, was taken from Apollo 17 in 1972 and features Africa and Antarctica. It is thought to be one of the most widely distributed photographs of any kind. Earth has a single large Moon that is about 1/4 of its diameter and, from the planet's surface, is seen to have almost exactly the same angular size as the Sun. With its abundance of liquid water, Earth supports a large variety of life forms, including potentially intelligent species such as dolphins and humans. Please enjoy your stay on Planet Earth.    -    Astronomy Picture of the Day, http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070325.html

Earth is of such a rare beauty and splendour set in all the immensity of space that it beckons us to look back at ourselves. It speaks of an ineffable mystery. Astronauts looking back have all been awestruck by the exquisite earthscape.

"As I looked down," said Astronaut John-David Bartoe, "I saw a large river meandering slowly along  for miles, passing from one country to another without  stopping. I also saw huge forests, extending across several borders. And I watched the extent of one ocean touch the shores of separate continents. Two words leaped to mind as I looked down on all this: commonality and interdependence. We  are one world."

For me the photo also has personal meaning. The photograph is taken virtually 'overhead' from where we live in Durban, neatly tucked in at about 30E and 30S, on the east coast of South Africa. It locates me not only "somewhere" on planet Earth but also "somewhere" in the Cosmos. The Psalmist wonders: 'I often think of the heavens your hands have made, and of the moon and stars you put in place. Then I ask, "Why do you care about us humans? Why are you concerned for us weaklings?"' (Psa 8:3-4 CEV). Or as Eugene Petersen paraphrases in The Message, "I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous, your handmade sky-jewelry, Moon and stars mounted in their settings. Then I look at my micro-self and wonder, Why do you bother with us? Why take a second look our way?"

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.  - Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles (sometimes incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela)

For a high resolution photo of "Blue Marble" see: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0703/bluemarble_apollo17_big.jpg

©Colin G Garvie
HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

Book of First Entry

From the moment we are born into this world we impact it with our presence wherever we go. Conversely the place of our birth is forever indelibly imprinted on us and our birthplace affects us everywhere.

Here in Africa our birthplace is regarded as sacred. Malidoma Patrice Some in, The Healing Wisdom of Africa,  writes (p.40)...

...some people believe that we choose not only our parents but also our place of birth. This is simply another way of emphasizing the importance of nature, for geography and nature are not really dissimilar. Being born into this world in a particular place is like having the signature of that place stamped upon you. The essence of our place of birth cloaks and protects your walk through this life, and whatever you do becomes registered in the ledger of that geography.... Your footprints still lead back to the place where you began. Any time there is a thought or memory of the origin, or an illusion to the origin, or more specifically a prayer that addresses your roots and the nature of your origin, then vast forces in the universe are unleashed.

That is powerful! It is as if one is sealed with the mark and character of one's birthplace.

I was born in Ladysmith the 15th June 1946. Winston Churchill wrote that Ladysmith was "famous to the uttermost ends of the earth: centre of the world's attention, the scene of famous deeds, the cause of mighty efforts." I think so too but for different reasons! Churchill was writing about the Siege of Ladysmith by the Boers 1899-1900.  On the other hand, I was thinking of my place of birth. Ladysmith was named after Juana Maria de Los Delores de Leon Smith, the beautiful young child-bride of Sir Harry Smith.  The story is told by Georgette Heyer in The Spanish Bride.

In the Ladysmith Library is a rather remarkable register of another very remarkable woman, perhaps the most remarkable woman in my life after my mother. It is the "Register of Midwifery" of Sister Lillie Sandalls (Public Library, Ladysmith). There is an entry...no. 520, of an infant boy, 8 1/2 lbs born alive, it says, on the 15.6.46 LOA, normal delivery. Unfortunately no time is given.

It's my "Book of First Entry"! How delighted I was to discover not only the register but especially that I was born "alive". Since then, my name has found its way into many more registers of both good and ill repute. Ultimately it is also written down in the Lamb's Book of Life. But to imagine that every time I think of, or pray for Ladysmith "vast forces in the universe are unleashed" is simply amazing. That just boggles my imagination. How is that for cybernetic interaction! How primal could that be? But that is how we think and believe here in Africa!

LOA? "Laughing Out Aloud"? No, that's just how I presented myself, "Left Occiput Anterior". Naturally, of course!

"When thou didst call me from nothing into life, thou didst will my happiness; when thou callest me away from life, will my happiness be less thy care? No. no, thou art Love, and whosoever dwells in love, dwells in thee, O Lord, and thou in him. AMEN." (Liturgy of St Mark.)















©Colin G Garvie
HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

"Hey! Is somebody out there? We are here! Got something to tell you!"

After matriculating in 1964 I was fortunate enough to be one of a small group to be selected to be trained in Space Communications at the Witwatersrand Technical College and the NASA/CSIR Tracking Facility at Hartebeeshoek not far from Johannesburg, South Africa.

At the Hartebeeshoek Tracking Station, we spent many long hours, among other fascinating projects, processing telemetry from the Pioneer range of spacecraft intended to explore our Solar System. Of the series of spacecraft, two, Pioneer 10 and 11, carried an intriguing plaque, a message from Earth! These were to be the first of our probes to go beyond our Solar System.  We had become interstellar explorers.

The gold plaque has symbols that are expected to be decipherable by extraterrestrial, intelligent life fortunate enough to intercept them. We must have been optimistic enough to hope somebody out there would by some strange and mysterious coincidence come across them. The message included a symbol for the hydrogen atom; a symbolic map for anyone out there to locate our position in the universe; a map of our solar system; and stylized drawings of a human couple set against a scaled drawing of Pioneer.

Not only was this intended for anybody out there lucky enough come upon one of these Pioneers but it also had personal symbolic significance for me over the years. It was a parable of my own individual identity as a human being. For me it represented my interest in the creation and evolution of life, cosmology and genealogy. It was not simply our story. It was my story too. In other words, it was about my own place in the universe, my quest, vocations and callings in life, reaching out to others.

Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely - make that miraculously - fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly - in you. ~ Bill Bryson , A Short History of Nearly Everything

By the time Pioneer 10 was launched in March 1972, Hartebeeshoek DSIF-51 was in the process of closing down and I was myself launching out into the uncertainties of Methodist ministry. It was a hazardous mission not without risks.

On a personal and spiritual level the Pioneer Plaque, an icon of who we are in the vast expanse of space and time, became increasingly a source of enduring wonder, awe, and assurance to me. Could we really have gone, I wondered, to all that bother and expense to send this modest, vulnerable, miniscule, lonely little message out there into a huge unknown believing we were all alone in the universe and no one else out there but us? Hardly! We packed our bags and flew off to our first appointment - an insignificant sprat thrown into Walvis Bay!

For more about the ...
Pioneer Space Program: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_program
Pioneer Plaques: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque

©Colin G Garvie
HomePage: http://www.garvies.co.za

Ecclesiastical Cybernetics: The Need for Loving, Inclusive Communities

I should elaborate a little more about "Cybernetics" and the Church.

Wikipedia says, "The term cybernetics stems from the Greek  kubernetes  (kyberne-te-s, steersman, governor, pilot, or rudder, the same root as government). Cybernetics is a broad field of study, but the essential goal of cybernetics is to understand and define the functions and processes of systems that have goals and that participate in circular, causal chains that move from action to sensing to comparison with desired goal, and again to action. Studies in cybernetics provide a means for examining the design and function of any system, including social systems such as business management and organizational learning, including for the purpose of making them more efficient  and effective. Cybernetics was defined by Norbert Wiener, in his book of that title, as the study of control and communication in the animal and the machine. and it includes the study of feedback, black boxes and derived concepts such as communication and control in living organisms, machines and organizations including self-organization."

The helmsman of a ship, the conductor of an orchestra, the bishop of a diocese or district, are examples of a "cybernete". The term applies to all systems whether cosmological, biological, electronic, ecological, neurological, etc including even, ecclesiastical systems. In fact, it is one of the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit in 1 Cor 12:28:

And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, also those having gifts of healing, those able to help others, those with gifts of administration, and those speaking in different kinds of tongues. (1Co 12:28 NIV)

My introduction to cybernetics was by way of the guidance and tracking systems involved in spacecraft destined for Venus and Mars that I had participated in. This involved not only the delicately tuned guidance and trajectory systems on board a spacecraft orientating it in space with respect to the Sun and  the star Canopus in order to reach its Destination or Goal but also the locking it into a communications link and network back on Earth. The Mar's Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, have been amazing examples of cybernetic systems that have survived all odds. 

Later, once I moved out of space communications into church administration, I discovered that similar guidance principles, metaphorically speaking, applied in preaching a sermon; conducting church services; leading church choirs; or controlling a youth group before "all hell breaks loose"; and developing church accounting systems. Theologically, there are also the fascinating subjects of "Divine Guidance"; "Spiritual Direction"; or just maintaining loving relationships and holding people together in hostile mission environments with a singular goal or objective in mind. In the case of my own denomination, “to spread Scriptural Holiness (Perfect Love) throughout the land.”

Intrinsic to any control system is what in electrical (eg. radios) and mechanical systems (eg. the servosystem of a tracking antenna) is called "feedback". In organisations such as churches this is termed "referral"; "consultation", or simply, "active listening", as in a counselling situation. Stafford Beer called it “the science of effective organization.” Just watch a flock of Egyptian geese in flight! Gordon Pask extended it to include information flows "in all media" from stars to brains.

In a religious context, however, cybernetics explores questions such as what happens within a system when we include or exclude people; when we suspend, discontinue, dismiss or defrock priests without considering the consequences or fallout; what signals do we send out by tolerance or intolerance, by theological liberalism or fundamentalism, or by espousing orthodoxy or unorthodoxy? We see all this play out in dramatic fashion in the Gospel stories.

When effective feedback is negative; consultation is overlooked; due process is ignored; directives aren't followed; or, mediation fails, the system goes into failure. Goals and objectives aren’t reached. The system  "malfunctions". An ant colony "succumbs". A spacecraft begins to "tumble". An aeroplane goes into a "tailspin". A nuclear reactor goes into “meltdown”. A misguided missiles results in “collateral damage”. An institution becomes economically or morally “bankrupt”. A church goes into “decline”.  It is no longer efficient and becomes redundant, "lukewarm". In theological terms, the Holy Spirit is quenched! It is the Laodicean Church of Revelations. The Scallops and Sprats will die.

Conversely, what are the effects of positive feedback mechanisms on a community of believers such as acceptance; recognition; affirmation; esteem; excellence; and, self-concept? Such are the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Maxwell Maltz believed that a person must have an accurate and positive view of one's self; otherwise he or she will get stuck in a continuing pattern of limiting beliefs. He believed that self-image is the cornerstone of all the changes that take place in a person. If one's self-image is unhealthy, or faulty, all of his or her efforts will end in failure. The same applies to ecclesiastical systems. Given positive, unconditionally loving and inclusive churches and communities and the Scallops and Sprats will thrive.


References:
Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics: A New Way to Get More Living out of Life, 1960, Prentice Hall
Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, 1948, John Wiley

Amazon:

Ecclesial cybernetics;: A study of democracy in the church
Cybernetics, society, and the church (Themes for today)

 

St Patrick's Day - Thin Places

Happy St Patrick's Day!

There will be celebrations today wherever the Irish are to be found and by those who wish to be. There will be whiskey and song, jokes and tales. Here in Durban, the Blarney Brothers will be in popular demand again tonight. "Their music is a mixture of Irish ballads, foot tapping pub songs, popular newies and the occasional Irish jig."  It is a jolly time.

For me St Patrick's Day isn't so much about shamrock, leprechauns and snakes. For me it is about what has come to be described as the "Celtic spirit" and that distinctive Celtic notion - "thin places". "Thin places are places where this world and the eternal world intertwine, are knitted together ... the two worlds touch. Thin Places - places where the veil between this world and the "Other" world is translucently thin - places where God is more near... mystical, cosmic, spiritual sites where heaven and earth mingle," says Mindie Burgoyne.

Thin Places are ports in the storm of life, where the pilgrims can move closer to the God they seek,  where one leaves that which is familiar and journeys into the Divine Presence.  They are stopping places where men and women are given pause to wonder about what lies beyond the mundane rituals, the grief, trials and boredom of our day-to-day life.  They probe to the core of the human heart and open the pathway that leads to satisfying the familiar hungers and yearnings common to all people on earth, the hunger to be connected, to be a part of something greater, to be loved, to find peace.    ~ Mindie Burgoyne, Walking Through Thin Places

There are many such places in Ireland. Newgrange is one. The nearby Hill of Tara is another. Tara is richly endowed with myth, legend, history, political and mystical experience. Tara was in ancient times a major centre of Druidism. It is therefore significant that many of the stories and legends of St Patrick and his confrontation with the old religious and political powers during the 5th Century took place on this hill.

It was on his way to Tara that Patrick prayed:

Christ with me,
Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ below me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left!

That was the prayer that I echoed in the May of 2008 as I sat quietly in the shades of the little churchyard where St Patrick, like an Elijah of old, had challenged the oppressive religious powers and officialdom. This was the thin place to which I had brought my own personal storms of life and struggles, moved closer to God, and there became intertwined with the ancient myths and longings of the human spirit of countless ages past. God was in that place. The Standing Stone of Destiny on Tara Hill suddenly became to me a Touchstone to the Divine, a memorial reminder of another...

... green hill far away,
Without a city wall,
Where the dear Lord was crucified
Who died to save us all.
              ~ Cecil Frances Alexander

...and below the Standing Stone the Empty Grave Mound.

Reference: Michael Slavin, The Book of Tara, 1996, Wolfhound Press, Dublin

Why do genealogy?

I am often asked that. "Why do you do genealogy?" There are two reasons why I do...

Firstly, to appreciate from whence I have come, the incredible past of those who came before me. This is beautifully expressed by Bill Bryson in his A Short History of Nearly Everything:

Not only have you been lucky enough to be attached since time immemorial to a favored evolutionary line, but you have also been extremely - make that miraculously - fortunate in your personal ancestry. Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years, a period of time older than the mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthy enough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to live long enough to do so. Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result - eventually, astoundingly, and all to briefly - in you.

Secondly, that I might dream of hitherto unimagined destinations, the amazing future that awaits those who come after me. H.G.Wells in The Discovery of the Future, says:

Out of our... lineage, minds will spring, that will reach back to us in our littleness to know us better than we know ourselves. A day will come, one day in the unending succession of days, when beings, beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins, shall stand upon this earth as one stands upon a footstool, and shall laugh and reach out their hands amidst the stars.

                                                                                                                                  
So I am into genealogy because my ancestors are just the most amazing people who overcame great obstacles in life and by doing so are responsible for my being. I want to know who they are and what they overcame so I can better appreciate who I am. I am also into genealogy because of the breathtaking vistas and destinies that await my descendants. I want to anticipate who they will be and the challenges they will face so I can better live my life now.

Somewhere John Wesley wrote, "I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: just hovering over the great gulf; till a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity!"

That is what genealogy does for me. It evokes spiritual wonder!








See also: Garvie Genealogy

Of Sprats and Scallops

One might wonder, why "Ichthys Cybernetics"?

Quite apart from an interest in Jungian archetypes and symbols there is something iconic about Sprats and Scallops.

The word "Ichthys" represents the Fish. In early Christian and ecclesiastical iconography, ichthys  was  an emblematic fish, and in Greek an acronym for "Jesus, Christ, Son of God, Saviour.".

"Cybernetics", the theoretical study of communication and control processes in biological, administrative, mechanical, ecological, and electronic systems. It is also from the Greek, kubernesis,  meaning "a rudder". "to steer", or "a governor". In 1 Corinthians 12:28 it one of the charisms of the Holy Spirit.

The two words represents something of my own vocations in life. There were the fascinating years during the late 1960s tracking and steering spacecraft through the deep, lonely tracks of outer space to far flung destinations at the Hartebeeshoek Deep Space Tracking Facility, Johannesburg. Then latterly the 35 years of Methodist ministry and calling represented by the fish.

The scallop is the traditional emblem of not only of the pilgrim traveller but  also of Methodism especially. It derives from the Wesley family coat of arms.

Interestingly the name "Garvie" is also a fish. The fish appears in the Garvie coat of arms. The sprats or young herrings found round the coasts of Scotland was the staple diet of the very poor. They were called "garvies". The Scottish theologian, Alfred Ernest Garvie relates an amusing story in his autobiography...

A small fish found on the east coast of Scotland also bears the name.  At school in Edinburgh. one of my nicknames was Sprat; and my eldest sister was asked by rude boys in the Sunday-school...: 'Hoo many garvies dae ye get for a penny?'

- AE Garvie, Memories and Meanings of My Life

According to the Dictionary of the Scots Language:

In Scotland sprats, garvocks, etc. and herrings, are roasted on the girdle which toasts the  family bread, and this plan answers very well in cottage economy.  ....garvies, as they are called, find their way to some of the  large Enghsh towns; and it is no secret that large quantities of them are despatched to  market in tin boxes cured as sardines.  ...a nick-name given to the Ninety-Fourth Foot Regiment  because of the youth or poor physique of the recruits, most of whom  came from the Edinburgh district.  ...the townspeople called it the Garvies . . . because it consisted of  mere boys.

Scallops and Sprats have these and many more connotations which I've collectively called... "Ichthys Cybernetcs"!