Clarity of thought sight and action.

A Wee Selfie.

I have a friend who even talks about being in such a place as this gives a feeling of vertigo. A feeling of vertigo is the very last thing that a person needs to have in such wild and wonderful places. What is needed is both clarity of thought and vision and each action must be made with care.

We are not very good at this in our modern society. I had a friend asked me to read a document that he could not make sense of. He asked me, " can you tell me what this means?" He was, in fact, being asked to be a guarantor on behalf of his sone. Let me share a bit of it with you and how our conversation ended.

"The undersigned (hereinafter called 'Guarantor') for and in consideration of the sum of Three Hundred United Kingdom Pounds(£300.00) and other good and valuable considerations in hand paid to the Guarantor, the receipt and sufficiency of which is hereby acknowledged, and to induce (at this point the name of the bank was inserted) a national banking association with offices and banking quarters at (address of the bank branch being used), (hereinafter called 'Bank'), at its option, at any time or from time to time to loan monies, with or without security to or for the account of (his sons name) (hereinafter called 'Borrower'), and at the special insistence and request of Bank, Guarantor hereby unconditionally guarantees the prompt payment at maturity of the following (hereinafter called the 'Indebtedness'):" 

"What does it mean?" he again asked me.  I replied, " If you sign this, you are  the fall guy if  your sone does not pay u." "So why can they not just say that?" 

We both burst out laughing.

There is a little tale I heard going around one day in a place where I was a chaplain. 

A worker asked for a pay raise and got this note back from his supervisor. The note read as follows.

"Because of the fluctuation predisposition of your position's productive capacity as juxtaposed to standard norms, it would be momentarily injudicious to advocate your requested increment." 

The puzzled worker went to the supervisor and said, "If this is about my pay raise, I don't get it." 

"That's right," said the supervisor. 

The above two could so easily be summed up with the words I find myself using frequently when listening or watching the daily politics programme, "Smoking Mirrors."

There are many situations in life when smoking mirrors and lack of attention should never be the name of the game. 

Pliny the Elder, was a Roman writer who lived during the same time period as Jesus. He told a story of the setting of an obelisk, which when erect would stand 99 feet tall. 

Twenty thousand workers were chosen to pull on the ropes and activate the hoisting apparatus. There were great responsibility and risk in the operation. Just one error could cause the obelisk to fall, ruining years of work. 

The King demanded one act which insured the complete attention and best direction of the engineer. He ordered the engineer's own son to be strapped to the apex of the obelisk so that his heart, as well as his head, would be given to the task. 

Go with care but have a great day and watch out for smoking mirrors.