A14 Episode 7: Top Secret

I first heard about RAF Trimley Heath on a visit to the Felixstowe Museum.   I was intrigued as I had always wondered what the red brick buildings were in the patch of woodland next to the A14.   The site itself is quite small - just enough to accommodate the radar antenna, the control buildings and staff accommodation.

During the war, everyone would have known it was a hush-hush place even though it was next to the main road!   They would even have known that it had some kind of radar capacity but few would have known how it worked and what it could do: that was classified.

Now it's a sad remnant since it closed 60 years ago.   It's not open to the public, is heavily overgrown and there are inherent dangers in visiting a site with derelict buildings - much of it is fenced off.

There are calls to try and preserve what's left as it's part of our disappearing history.  If you do a search online you can find out more - or visit Felixstowe Museum.   Many stories have gone around over the years about what it did - some fanciful but that's not surprised in the days when little was known about the base.  Now we have a good idea about its purpose and the ability the RAF gained to use radar to accurately track targets from the ground with stations like this.

Once a secret - now a piece of public knowledge.   That's the same with God.    To most people God is mysterious unknowable.    But that's just not true.  He wants to know each of us personally, be part of our lives.   And He offers us every opportunity to know Him through Jesus.

That's the bottom line in this video.  God can be known - personally - in Jesus.   He offers relationship to everyone.    He's made His move, now he invites us to make ours.   To recognise that we are separated from Him, accept that He offers in Jesus and follow Him. 

It sounds an amazing offer in a world where most people think that God should be mysterious.   He doesn't want to be a mystery to us - he wants to know us.   So how about it?

From Felixstowe to Armageddon

If Felixstowe and Armageddon aren't two words you would automatically associate together, then you've probably never heard of Edmund Allenby - well at least not until now.  For Edmund was the First Viscount Allenby of Megiddo (Armageddon) and Felixstowe.

The video explores how that came about.   Allenby was most famous for his victories in Palestine, particularly taking Jerusalem from the Turks in 1917.  His finest hour though was his victory at Megiddo in August 1918 which let to the total rout of the Turkish army.

If you want to know more about Allenby, then there is quite a lot of information on the internet.  His Wikipedia entry gives some good introductory information, but there are also some more authoritative articles on him if you do a search.

Allenby was very much a child of his time, both as someone brought up in Victorian England and as a soldier during a period when warfare was changing and involving killing on a scale never seen before.

There is evidence that Allenby struggled with the carnage of the Western Front, when he lost his only son.  The posting to Palestine was much more his forte, both in  terms of the nature of the warfare involved and as an opportunity to reflect on his Christian faith.  On the other hand he was a tough soldier and as his nickname "The Bull" suggests, was a bullish character.  When the final offensive in Palestine came, he did not hesitate to ensure his enemy was totally crushed.

The aim of Allenby's Palestine Campaign was to reduce the Turkish threat to British interests in Egypt as well as preventing any expansion towards India.  Turkey had sided with Germany in the First World War and even in 1917, there was still the threat of losing the war.  After the War was won, the British policy in the Middle East was not really thought through - shades of the Iraq war 90 years later perhaps?   The ending of 600 years of Ottoman Turkish rule left a vacuum into which pressures both from Zionist Jews and local Palestinian Arabs started to come into play.   The  Balfour Declaration seems to have been a product of political expediency at the time rather than anything that might have had a religious connotation.

Despite the Balfour Declaration, the British were not in a hurry to establish a Jewish state while they held the British Mandate.  The establishment of Israel in 1947-48 was very much reflective of the horrors of World War 2 rather than British policy which was very cool towards Jewish settlers in Palestine by the end of the mandate because of the tension between Jewish settlers and Arab residents.

As I said in the video, up until Allenby's Palestine campaign, the notion of a Jewish homeland in what had been for 600 years part of the Ottoman Empire, was not seriously considered.  In fact Zionism itself only really started in the early 19th Century.  Until that point, Jews had been persecuted extensively for centuries - no-one entertained thought of establishing a Jewish state - it was inconceivable.

Yet in Bible prophecies of end times in the Bible, a Jewish state is an integral part.   An independent Jewish state had not really existed since 586BC although Jewish people had been allowed to have various levels of self-government in other empires until eventually the Romans took all that away from them in 70AD by tearing down the city walls and destroying The Temple.  That marked the end of Jewish self-government and the later there was  total destruction of Jerusalem in 135AD - even down to the foundations, which had been prophesied by Jesus back in 30AD.

But now Israel is back.  A restored Israel takes centre-stage in prophecies in the Old and New Testaments.   And of course there's the prophecy about the end battle where Jesus returns : Armageddon.

One of the things we do know about Allenby is that he had a great understanding of the Bible and of Palestine.   He is said to have always carried a Bible and Sir George Adam Smith's Geography of the Holy Land.   In his capture of Jerusalem and his victory of Megiddo, he had a sense that he was making more than history.  He also knew the significance of Megiddo, even though he knew his battle wasn't Armageddon.

For Christians in this generation, the existence of a state of Israel is a sign of the times - a pointer to the end times that prophesied in the Bible, with the end being the bodily return of Jesus Christ.  It has been anticipated by Christians down the centuries and there are over 300 references to it in the Bible - around about the same number that predicted his first coming. 

As I said in the video, we may not know when Jesus will come but we can be prepared.  In fact we can know his presence in our lives right now, through trusting and following Jesus.  There's no need to wait.  

A14 Round the Bend

Anyone who has been living in Suffolk for more than 5 years and owns a car is likely to have both heard of and experienced the Haughley Bends. For years it was one of Suffolk's worse accident blackspots. It was a pity really as it must have once been an attractive piece of road, winding as it did through the trees to the south of Haughley between Stowmarket and Bury.

But even by the late 60s, the traffic on the A45 together with the bends and junctions made this piece of road dangerous and a dual carriageway was built.   But rather than the modern trend to upgrade everything on a piece of road being improved, it was quite common in the 60s and 70s to just build a new carriageway and use the old one without improvement.  It made for an attractive dual carriageway with good refuges for right turning traffic - none of the interchanges of the later A14.  But the eastbound carriageway was relatively narrow with substantial bends.

With the plan to make this into a strategic route in the 70s, the fateful decision was made to incorporate the Haughley dual carriageway into the new highway without improving anything.   At first, that was probably fine but with the huge increase in Felixstowe port traffic and increase in cars to 48,000 a day, the road was turned from an attractive dual carriageway into a death trap as fast moving traffic met right turning traffic and crossing traffic moving at all sorts of angles and not necessarily visible with the bends and woodland.  The eastbound carriageway in particular was quite tricky with HGV traffic and never quite knowing if everything would come to a sudden stop.   Queues would tail back at peak hours as traffic slowed at the bends and junctions.

Why did no-one foresee this?   They probably did, but financial constraints probably meant that it was earmarked for future improvement if needs be.    Even when it became a big problem, it took some time to put in the speed limit and cameras.    Even when the bypass was programmed, the process was slow and people complained about the escalating cost, particularly as it was decided to take the more expensive total bypass route known at the time as the blue route.  Such is the nature of strategic road planning.

That said, the new Haughley Bypass was a good result for A14 traffic and possibly for the long suffering citizens of Haugley as it left them with quiet local roads.

My video was all about looking at what's ahead and being prepared to count the cost.  That's so important in life, not just in strategic road planning!  We all like the best to happen, but also know that bad times come too - and then death.   Jesus wants us to be prepared for it and walk through those situations in life with us, and also to experience eternal life with Him.  Through the centuries people have found that walk with Him to be an amazing experience.  

Jesus wants all of use to walk with Him in life.  To find that He makes our paths straight as it said in the video.   That means by which that can happen is because Jesus gave His own life for us on the cross so that He could deal with all the things that separate us from God.   Now He invites us to walk through life with Him, to know God's forgiveness and acceptance, to find that He really is alive; that He does exist.   Why not ask Him to come into your life today.

Eyesores Revisited

You can see the previous version at Original Eyesores video

The visiting again of some of the scruffy seafront sites in Felixstowe seemed to be a good example of the principle of redemption.  They were unkempt and in some cases derelict sites awaiting someone to give them some TLC.  Much of the south seafront land has never had permanent buildings on it to my knowledge.

It was land that needed not just rescuing but redeeming.   These places have always had plenty of champions in local politics, but they needed someone who was going to spend some money - even take financial risks - to get these sites into beneficial use.   That's the principle of redemption - saving something takes considerable cost.

As I said in the video, redemption is central to the Christian faith.   To open a way so that a human race who largely have no time for God could find him, know him, have hope through him, know forgiveness in him was costly for God.  It wasn't just about God being nice, loving and caring; it wasn't just about God being forgiving; it wasn't even about God offering us rescue; it was about God doing something personally very very costly in order to offer a way back to himself to people who have walked away from him.   That makes the difference between redemption and any of the other things  for people: it cost God to want to get us back; to save us from the wreckage we create in our lives and in our society.

Have you walked away from God and think you could never deserve and ever be good enough to know God?   Then think again.  God has paid a high price for your redemption.   All you have to do is turn to him and recognise the price paid by Jesus on the cross and ask God for forgiveness, for hope in life and for eternity, for healing of our lives and relationships.   Why not decide to follow Jesus and ask him into your life today?

A14: Toll Road

Plans are afoot to make part of the improvement of the A14 between Cambridge and Huntingdon a toll road. This video explored this in light of experience of toll roads in Spain and on the M6 in the Midlands.

Do they really work?
In the context of the M6 Toll and of autopistas in Spain which work on much the same model, the answer is no.  Toll roads at the present pricing structure do not cream enough paying customers to make them economically worthwhile.   As a result, congestion is only alleviated to an extent, not solved.   The more expensive option of just providing new non-toll roads is more successful and can have a big impact on congestion with the environmental benefits that brings.

In some countries toll roads have a much better success level.  There is a substantial mileage if peage autoroute in France and it's well used by all classes of traffic.     It seems to work here for two reasons, firstly because the fuel and road tax structure is different and secondly, because there aren't any realistic alternatives to using them.  Where the French Government wants to promote economic development, autoroutes are usually free such as the A16 along the Channel coast and the A75 through the Massif Central.

What sort of compromises need to be made?
To build any road, compromises need to be made.  In Britain we have the irony of loving our cars but opposing road building in our back yard or favourite places.   What gets built is a compromise and it's the conventional wisdom of our generation that gives us the compromise routes that we see today.  In the sixties Motorway boom, roads like the A12 and A14 would have been motorways built to a high standards.  However, economics, environmentalism and local opposition all contrived to make these roads the compromises that they are - with their congestion, poor safety record and poor quality construction.   In the long run, could it all have been done better?  We compromised, we made our choice and now undoing messes is going to cost money.
 
Does God compromise when we are faced with choices in life? 
Our society is about compromise.  Life is about compromise.    That's I guess why many people find God unbending, inflexible.  He has His standards and that's that.   Most people realise thy can't reach them.  We all hope that a loving God will somehow melt and ignore his standards.   He doesn't.

BUT He is a loving God and decided to make sure we can reach Him, we can know Him and we can know eternal life.    And that was through the death of Jesus on the cross, taking the punishment for our sin and wrongdoing.  So God offers each person a relationship with Him and eternal life for free, as we understand this is the case and as we come accepting forgiveness and is gift of eternal life.

The Christian faith is an opt-in faith.   God doesn't push it on people who don't want Him.  But He gives it freely to all who will receive the gift and follow Jesus.   Why not accept it today?

The Christmas Tree

What makes up the modern Christmas celebrations? Each new generation develops different ways of celebrating Christmas from the previous. So what we have in 2012 is an eclectic mix of items. At it's core, Christ-mas is the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ. However, over the years, many of the sights and sounds that we associated with Christmas have varying relevance to the story of Christmas as presented to us in the Bible.

Some items have a tenuous link to Christianity. Santa started off from the legend of a Christian saint - Nicholas. Now he's the red coated, white bearded gent who lives at the North Pole, has elves, makes toys and delivers them to every child in the world on a flying sleigh pulled by Rudolph and his friends. Complete fantasy and obviously nothing to do with Jesus Christ. Then what about robins, yule logs, feasting - all the marks of pagan midwinter festivals. On top of that we add Charles Dickens and the Sound of Music.

In my video we saw that the Christmas tree has slightly nobler origins than many other Christian traditions, but only if we see it for what it is supposed to represent - a welcoming of Jesus Christ.

Now there's nothing wrong with having a good time. But if we miss Jesus out of Christmas, we miss the most important part.

Why? Because, God himself was entering the world as a baby? And the purpose? To open a way by which God could make us part of his family. And Jesus, the man opened a way by which of us can know God.

Do you know God? You can know him through Jesus, because in his death Jesus opened the way by which each man and each woman can come to know Go. Not just for some point in the future, but now. He wants to make a difference to our lives today.

It's not something he forces on us. He gives us the choice. When Jesus came, many people heard what he had to say. Some didn't believe him, but there were many who did. And there are countless millions in the world today who have found that out for themselves. And this Christmas, Jesus is offering that to you to.

Have a great Christmas!

Jacob's Ladder

So here we have it, a promenade extension in gleaming white concrete and dark rock blocks and leading to Jacob's Ladder.   It's a big improvement to our sea defences, and and a new addition to Felixstowe's coastline.

Jacob's Ladder is a name for many steep flights of steps all over the world.   As I said in the video, it's inspired by Jacob's dream at Bethel.  If you want to read about Jacob, his story starts in the first book of the Bible - Genesis - chapter 25 and verse 20 onwards into the subsequent chapters.  He didn't deserve God's attention way but the dream at Bethel was the start of a lifelong walk with God for Jacob.  It didn't mean he became a reformed figure overnight - that took some time - but he realised that God was prepared to show him favour even though his actions didn't merit it.

To be honest, even though we probably aren't crooks like Jacob, we know we do things that don't honour or please God in our lives; and we ignore him most of the time.   Yet as we look in the Bible we find that God loves each one of us and desires, like Jacob, to show us his favour, despite how we have treated him or behaved ourselves.

His shown that in one particular way, by becoming one of us and he lived the life of a man - Jesus. It's through his death and resurrection of Jesus that God made a way by which we can all know God.  He's made the first move and holds his hand out to us.

And the same promise applies to us as Jacob: if we follow Jesus, we know the presence of God's Holy Spirit in our lives.  Our lives can be and should be a walk with God.  The question is; are they?   Or are we a "work in progress" as Jacob was for a large part of his life?  Do pray that you may know the presence of God leading you and bieng with you day by day.