For Granddad.

Arthur Harold Johnson in Memoriam

He was a carpenter.

Like his father before him.

He was a practical man.

He wasn’t considered a scholar but when he started talking about the bible, you knew that he had hidden the words of God in his soul.

He wasn’t overawed by power. And he didn’t look down on poverty.

He always said, “man looks on the outside, God looks on the heart.”

He was respected by the righteous.

He was loved by the fallen.

He was an irritant to hypocrites.

He loved to be alone in the wild.

I never had a better friend.

His steadfast motto in life was “love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind and with all your soul. And love your neighbour as yourself.”

He was named for kings, but he served all.

He was greatness.

He was compassion.

He was justice.

He was water to the thirsty and he was fire to the oppressor.

He was a quiet whisper in a raging world.

He was steadfast and he was kind.

He was everything I want to become.

For now, he is hidden, like the reflection in a bronze mirror.

But until we see face to face, I will do everything I can to follow in his footsteps.

My Parents, Ian and Wendy Hamilton.

Hearken, my son, to the discipline of your father, and do not forsake the instruction of your mother; for they are a wreath of grace for your head and a necklace for your neck.

Proverbs - Chapter 1 8-9

I grew up in New Zealand as the eldest child of Ian and Wendy Hamilton. Two people who REALLY believe in God. And not in a theoretically religious way either. More in the ‘Let’s inquire of the Lord regarding this problem and do what he suggests’, sort of way. I have three younger siblings. Rachel, Paul and John. We all ended up with biblical names because Mum and Dad couldn’t agree on what to call me. Apparently, their standard marital synergy experienced difficulties while awaiting my arrival. They took the naming of me quite seriously and loathed each other’s suggestions. Finally, my father hit on the bright idea of limiting the options to anything biblical. “In that case,” said my mother, “she’ll have to be a Ruth. She can’t be anything else. It’s the most beautiful story in the Bible.”

“Oh yes, it can’t be anything but Ruth,” agreed Dad.

I am very grateful they decided all this while I was still a tenant in Mum’s tummy. By all accounts, I was a spotty, flaming redhead of a baby with a cone shaped head. Had they said to one another, “Oh let’s just see what she looks like when she arrives,” I’d be in trouble.

Dad is a scientist and Mum is an artist. She’s also an author, but she wasn’t back then. I and my siblings were home-schooled. My parents were deeply distrustful of the Fabian state education that New Zealand was dishing up for free. They didn’t much like the look of the Christian schools either. So I and my siblings consumed an education that was idyllic. We lived in a 1920’s Californian redwood bungalow in the North of New Zealand. The house was full of books and we were often taken to the town library. My father’s book collection was so beautiful it was stored in pride of place in an enormous bookcase next to the fire. Everything was bound in leather, in deep hues of green, red and blue. Many of the spines were adorned with golden Hebrew and Greek letters. The insides were mainly English, but an English of such an incomprehensible nature, that the few attempts I made to read them quickly ended. Mum’s book collection was a great deal nicer. Mostly children’s novels from the 1920s. Her book collection wasn’t as aesthetically pleasing as Dad’s collection so it was hidden away in the attic. My parents lined the walls of the attic with book shelves. Then they attached a rustic ladder to an antique pulley and hinges so we could let the ladder down and climb into the attic whenever we felt like it. The chimney ran up through the floor and heated the space nicely. The floor was covered with Persian rugs and cushions.

Had I read Arabian Nights, I might have imagined I was in Aladdin’s cave of wonders. But no book with magic of any sort was ever welcome in our home. Deeply spiritual, in fact, rather mystical, my parents placed an emphasis on tangible connection to God that in retrospect was completely unique to them. I grew up in a religious community but even by those standards, my parents were odd. They were obsessed with gaining connection to God. They seldom spoke of our religion. But they never stopped speaking about our God and his book. My parents poured over the Bible daily, seeking ways of getting closer to God. They demonstrated continuously the power of prayer and the reality of miracles. If I had to sum up Ian and Wendy Hamilton’s creed of faith in one word, I would have to choose ‘loyalty.’ And loyalty does not mean dogmatism in doctrine. It means total dedication to hunting God out and finding out what he wants, and then doing it. My parents never, ever forced a belief system upon me. But who could ever escape believing in a Being as tangible as their God? My parents are my best friends. I wish every child on the earth could be raised by people as kind and wise as they are. It would solve a lot of problems.

My Sister, Rachel.

Best friends since, like, forever!

Rachel had beautiful features and a beautiful complexion.

Genesis Chapter 29-7

I don’t remember it, but apparently, I was impressed when my sister Rachel, was born. I looked at the microscopic human nestling in my mother’s arms and said, (much to my mother’s gratification), “that’s AMAZING!”

Friendly relations were quickly established. Here was a human who saw the world as I saw it. When I suggested that we collect all the newly cut grass from the lawn and toss it into Mum’s freshly mopped entrance way, ( why, oh why did this seem like such a good idea?), she helped me collect a good two buckets worth of sodden green grass for the task.

And when I suggested the cat needed a hair cut, she clung tenaciously to that unfortunate beast while I denuded his tail.

She also proved agreeable to having her face coated entirely in ceramic paint when I turned her into a clown. I raided my aunt’s pottery paint collection for this mammoth task and worked with commendable purpose while my mother indulged in a light afternoon nap. And Rachel bore me no ill will when my mother and aunt found my work and wailed that she might have to spend her entire life as a clown, due to the indelible nature of the paints I had used. (She was redeemed from this fate by a bottle of eucalyptus oil that my quick witted aunt applied.)

My sister is probably one of the most kind, maternal women I’ve ever met. While I used her as a human canvas for clown painting, she was considerably kinder to the siblings beneath us. She would ‘read’ endless stories to our brothers before she was even literate. She would make up tales to go with the pictures.

When she turned nineteen, she embarked (literally), on charity work. She boarded a ship that ran through pirate infested waters to land in a country that had been ravished by war. When she was there, she divided her time between working in an orphanage and hauling unexploded bombs out of wells. Strange to say, she seemed to enjoy this a great deal, and ever since has always been trotting off to this or that part of the globe to help out in some crisis.

Apparently, I got it right when I first met this formidable woman as a howling lump in my mother’s arms.

She really is amazing.

My Brothers, Paul and John.

A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

Proverbs 17:17

My parents had always planned to have four children. Then they had me and my sister. “Two,” said my exhausted mother to my father, “is quite enough. Let’s stop at two.”

So they stopped.

Then Grandma was at the clothes line and Grandma got a message. Grandma often got messages at the clothes line.

“I say,” she said to my mum. “You and Ian are going to have two more children.”

“I don’t think so,” said Mum darkly. “The two we’ve got are quite enough, thanks.”

“But I heard from God at the clothes line!” said Grandma excitedly. “He said, ‘I’m going to give Ian and Wendy two sons for faithfulness!”

“Well, we’re not planning on having any more,” said Mum.

“If I got this wrong,” retorted Grandma, “then I shall have to seriously rethink how I hear the voice of the Lord.”

Then quite suddenly, unexpectedly, Mum was pregnant.

“It’s a boy,” said Grandma serenely, when she heard.

“We don’t know that yet,” objected Mum.

“It’s the first of your two boys for faithfulness to God,” said Grandma. “It’s a boy, alright.”

And it was. They named him Paul.

And a few years later, it was another boy. And they named him John.

I read somewhere that brothers are the present that God gives you and then he laughs. It’s probably true. A few years ago I was thinking about this story and a thought occurred to me. In retrospect, I really think I ought to have taken my query to my sensitive sister, but instead I hunted out my two ‘gifted from God’ brothers. I found them, hidden behind stacks and stacks of text books on engineering and computer science, swotting for their respective university exams. “You know how you were given to Mum and Dad for faithfulness?” I said, as I plonked myself down.

“Yes?”

“Well, what’d you think he gave Rachel and me to Mum and Dad for?”

The elder brother emerged from his huge and horrible text book. He had a gleam in his eye and a smirk on his mouth. “Punishment,” he said, succinctly. Then he returned to his study.

I stuck my tongue out at him and retreated. His reply did not alarm me one whit.

A brother is still a brother, even if his arrival was heralded by the voice of God at Grandma’s clothesline.