This book is made from various attempts to record the excitement that has attended life so far. Spread over some thirty years and now put together as one statement, they may show the progression, or otherwise, of a writer’s thought, and the environment that engenders and shapes, but must never appear in, the work.
The texts are the full texts as they were written, though not always as they were presented. Lectures are constrained by time and the patience of an audience, and articles are subject to an imposed length.
I myself have edited occasionally here, but, I hope, honourably. When dealing, over time, with linked themes, it is natural if for once something has been said definitively to use it again. Therefore in this context I have avoided the inelegance that would engender. There are other kinds of repetition that may be instructive; and I have held my pen and kept them in.
So here, for me, are the building blocks of what matters. It is a map of a journey that has been made possible by the friends, influencing minds and helpers that have brought me to this point. To try to list them would be prodigal of paper beyond the reckless, and would face me with choices to defeat Solomon; for I have been most fortunate in the net of fellowship through life and around the world. Better that both fellowship and trees stand.
A.G.
Blackden
14 January 1997