Ambivert

And when I should remember the paragons of Hellas

I think instead

Of the crooks, the adventurers, the opportunists,

The careless athletes and the fancy boys,

The hair-splitters, the pedants, the hard-boiled sceptics

And the Agora and the noise

Of the demagogues and the quacks; and the women pouring

Libations over graves

And the trimmers at Delphi and the dummies at Sparta and lastly

I think of the slaves.

‘This is no river of the dead or Lethe,

Tonight we sleep

On the banks of the Rubicon – the die is cast;

There will be time to audit

The accounts later, there will be sunlight later

And the equation will come out at last.’

• Katie Fleming

This writer has traveled around the world 8 times, every continent, passport stamped in 157 countries, many countries several times.

On the nightly BBC radio broadcasts, weather reports are given from certain cities around the world. I have never heard the weather from a city I have not visited. I remember crossing the Rubicon, the river which Julius Caesar crossed in 49BC, Northern Italy. Several trips, I probably traveled Italy more than any other country.

Rubicon, the Damascus gate at Jerusalem, Agora in India, the great wall of China, a myriad of other places, I would often slap myself on the head, and say, “am I really here?” This blind veteran, born in poverty, knowing as very few have known, discipline in obtaining my education.

Why did God reach down and pick me out of a family, choose me to represent Him around the world? People take on the nature of the god they serve. Most take on the nature-values of their idols. I always knew that my relatives, decent people as they were and are, were just playing church, thinking that they were fooling God, actually praying, conniving-conjuring, a belief system more acceptable by the world than the Holiness of God.

I truly believe that it is the conflicting discipline in life of trying to rationalize the daily physical mediation involving the world-flesh-devil with the spiritual expectations of your soul's commitment. The hypocrite has it so easy, just go along to get along, no basic philosophy-value system.

Your personality becomes conflicted between the extrovert, which you want to be... happy go-lucky, everyone’s friend, fitting in everywhere or the introverted, serious-minded, basic values and rules of conduct. I probably became the AMBIVERT, very much at ease with myself, spiritually and professionally, yet knew how to circulate amongst those who did not know what they were or where they were going.

It has never been easy to live the “directed” life... you are called a nut, “different”, religious fanatic. After all, life is a matter of cutting corners, political-correctness, popularity...”the end justifies he means”.

When I prepared to enter the University, my mother said, “Thomas, things will be different there, but if you cannot adjust to the differences in people, you might as well stay home.” I knew she knew that God had chosen me and had been preparing me, as poor as the preparations were, to travel a different road, live a different life.

I was aware, even then, that there are genuine people in the world, that everyone is not a pretender, a masquerade or charade. In all the community, church house, school house, I had watched Mrs. Sophronia. Mr. Kinchin's wife had died, his children were all grown and married, a land owner at one time, he had lost all during the great depression. Against the wishes of his children, Mrs. Sophronia married him, was very good to him, made sure he was always at the church, comfortable. But, at the communion service, she would not participate, get up and walk out of the church, because she knew that his children were angry with her. It did not bother them, the fact that she had given up her life to care for their father, that she believed enough in the worthiness of the communion elements, (wine and bread representing the blood and body of Jesus) to participate if angry with people in the church. HER CHRISTIANITY WAS REAL.

The entire Bible is about One man, Jesus Christ, the son of God, the gold thread of Jesus winds through every verse of the Bible, even though some scriptures are historical, not entirely gospel. To show the value that God placed on His son, the entire creation of the world and everything in it is presented in just four chapters of Genesis. But, the tabernacle in the wilderness, built to God's exact specifications, the Holy of Holies-Ark of Covenant, all representing Jesus, covers twenty chapters of the Bible, Exodus 25 – 45. Serving the God of the Bible is serious business. Every word in the Bible, there for a reason.

Recent history, the world effeminized, the military, judicial, spiritual.

Ahab was Israel's most wicked King and I believe it was because of his wicked wife, Jezebel. There is a Jezebel spirit in today's world, that Jezebel spirit can take everything. The world is desperate for a “Nathan” spirit, husbands, fathers, uncles, leaders.

This Christian writer's greatest humility, contending with the Jezebel spirit in the opposite sex... the fact that I am a divorced man. This ambivert takes comfort from the man God loved, David, who, because of his sin with Uriah's wife, Bathsheba, produced Solomon. What would the world be like without King Solomon. God moves in “mysterious” ways. My son, the best features of his mother and I trust of me... the true ambivert and, of course, I have two special grandsons.