Today’s my sixty-sixth birthday; by good fortune, there are no other sixes applicable to the date. I started by running (17°, ‘feels like 20°’), by cleaning up and going to church at St Andrew’s, by pushing more to the finish line of the James essay, and reminiscing about my lovely friends who have left birthday greetings online.
I love you all, and I’m deeply thankful for the chance to have studied and taught and ministered and played and celebrated among you. You’ve contributed all that’s best in me. You’re champs, and in you I am very, very blessed. And old. I have work yet to do that I hope eventually to complete — but that’s out of my hands. I begin every morning by praying ‘Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; let the whole world stand in awe of him’, and I end every day by praying ‘So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom’; my wisdom is to revel in the beauty of holiness as long as I may, and to encourage everyone I can, as fully as I can, to share with awe in the glory of God.