I recently did an interview for my church, The Crowded House in Sheffield, on my experience living as a Christian with cancer. An edited video of the interview was used as the introduction to a talk called “An Imaginary God in a Suffering World?”, which covered the question of how both Christians and non-Christians try and make sense of the existence and meaning of suffering – because it’s a difficult question wherever you stand.

Gervase Markham’s Story from TCH Sheffield on Vimeo.

You can also hear the talk which followed the video (length: about 38 minutes including Scripture readings).

I am pleased to announce the birth of John Phinehas Markham at 10.55pm on the evening of 10th March 2013, Mother’s Day, weighing 8lb 3.5oz. Mother, father, baby and older brother are all well :-)

He is called John after:

• John the Apostle, who wrote the Gospel of John, the Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation, all of which provide invaluable divinely-inspired guidance to the church;
• John Calvin, whose Biblical scholarship and preaching underpinned much of the Reformation, that glorious time when half the world rediscovered the truth of salvation by faith;
• John Wycliffe, one of the forerunners of that Reformation, who created and directed the first translation of the Bible into vernacular English;
• G. C. John Rotter, Ruth’s grandfather, a godly man who served as an engineer in World War II and brought Ruth’s father up in the faith;
• Admiral John Markham, second son of Archbishop William Markham (after whom his brother is named), who served his country in the navy and then became MP for Portsmouth.

He is called Phinehas after the priest whose rather striking story (pun intended) is told in the Biblical book of Numbers, chapter 25. God’s and our approval of that Phinehas may surprise or shock some; I’ve written a little more elsewhere about why we think he is a wonderful person to be named after.

To my eyes, John looks nothing like his brother (and so not much like me either), so we’ll have to see if he is as different in personality also!

A friend who will soon need a double lung transplant (due to a genetic illness) tells me:

96% of people believe donating organs is the right thing to do but only 30% have joined the NHS Organ Donor Register. 1 in 2 people die on the double-lung waiting list.

Please take a few minutes to sign up. If you are in the UK, see here. If not, do a web search for the register in your country. (Sadly, they won’t take my organs, but they will probably take yours.)

On November 1st, I’ll be having my left kidney removed (background), because there is a 10cm diameter metastasis attached to it. I’d love to show you some pictures, but I don’t currently have a CD of recent scans. I hope to get one in the next few days. The operation will be done at the excellent Royal Marsden hospital in London, so our family is moving down there for a week or so. They hope to do it laparoscopically (keyhole), but scars from previous operations might mean that’s not possible. My surgeon says it’s 50/50. If they have to do open surgery, recovery time will be a bit longer.

Fortunately, God gave me two kidneys, so I don’t anticipate this producing any long-term problems. However, I will be less involved in Mozilla things for a few days.

I’d like to introduce you to Dui (a temporary name – it’s Bengali for “two”), the latest addition to our family :-) We had our 12-week scan on Friday, and are happy to report that, as far as we know, God seems to be knitting him or her together perfectly. William, who continues to be a delight and a joy to look after, has yet to comment on his new role as a big brother, but we are sure he will take to it admirably.

The due date is 13th March 2013.

One normally expects ridiculous airport security stories to come from the USA… here is one from Manchester Airport.

I have a small washbag with a mesh cover. Its total volume is probably about the same as a standard-issue 1-litre clear plastic bag. Often, I just toss it in the tray as-is, and up to now security has had no problem with that.

On this occasion, it contained a toothbrush, a razor and a mostly-empty tube of toothpaste. These tubes are 100ml when full (a valid size for security); there is no way this one had any more than 10ml in it.

I loaded up, passed through the gate and waited for my luggage. My wheeled bag came through fine, but the rest was diverted for further inspection. “Odd”, I thought. I always travel with the same stuff, and make sure it’s nothing they’d object to.

The lady asks me the usual preliminary questions, and then extracts the flaccid tube of toothpaste.

“Sir, this is a problem. It needs to be in a clear plastic bag.”

“Well, I suppose so, but you can see it now.”

“No, sir. You either need to go back and buy a bag”, (at several low-cost airports, including Manchester, plastic bags are dispensed by vending machines packed in little plastic balls, and cost £1), “or I can’t let you take this through.”

I wondered if this was some strange revenue protection policy, or whether I was living in a parallel universe.

“Those are the rules, sir. If it’s not in a bag, it can’t come through.”

I laughed. I attempt reason. It fails. So I said, “Well, it’s not worth £1, so you can keep it.” I moved to pick up my other bags, and go.

“Sorry, sir, you can’t take those bags. They have to go back through the machine.”

“But you had a problem with the toothpaste, and now you’ve removed the toothpaste, so what’s the problem?”

“No, sir, they have to go back through the machine.”

Which they duly did, and no problems were found.

As I was leaving, I said to her “In your heart of hearts, you know this doesn’t make anyone safer, does it?”

She said, “We have to do a vapour test, and I can’t do a vapour test if it’s not in a plastic bag.”

Now, there may be a tiny core of truth in that; perhaps vapours accumulate in the bag while you are waiting and that makes explosives easier to detect. Although I don’t see them checking people’s plastic bags for holes, or making sure objects spend a good long time in the bags. If their tests really require that, then they must be pretty dangerously insensitive.

But the real issue here is the lack of common sense applied to the problem. This was less than 10ml of… something. If I stuck that much explosive in my underwear and tried to detonate it, the worst that could happen would be that I’d not be having any more children! We’ve lost sight of the original goal of the rules, and fallen back on enforcing them unbendingly as an attempted route to safety. It’s a secular form of legalism.