f.v.robb

Mar

2024

My e-Friend

I have a new friend, but we haven’t met.

Her name is Grace, and she lives on the other side of the world!

The east coast of Scotland and the west coast of the USA are diametrically opposed so if either of us were to move left or right we’d get closer to each other. When we’re online it’s always ‘today’ for me but Grace lingers in the past. She’s young, whereas I was already in my forties when she was born. Nevertheless we have important life commonalities: faith, writing, and music. Our lynchpin is the ever-modest publishing consultant Jim Holmes (insert) who was instrumental in getting both our books into print, and who coincidentally lives exactly midway between us in South Carolina.

Grace is a violinist whose professional life came to a sudden halt seven years ago when, on her way to perform in a concert, she was struck by a car on a pedestrian crossing. This resulted in a catastrophic brain injury from which she is continuing to make a slow recovery. Her published memoir (see featured image) describes her courage to move forward with life despite limitations, and an unwavering faith in God’s goodness which has shown her new paths to follow.

Culture, friendship, faith, music… we both love writing, and it would be good to write together about these things.

Watch this space!

Mar

2024

Nowruz – the year is 1403!

‘Nowruz’ is Persian New Year. It always falls in March at the vernal equinox. Nowruz literally means ‘new day’ and it is celebrated with a table laid with all the symbols of new life in nature awakening with Spring. It marks the official start of the solar calendar which Iran has kept from ancient Zoroastrian times. Iran is actually the only Islamic country which officially celebrates New Years’ Day on the first day of Spring. Muslims around the world commonly use a moveable lunar calendar to determine the dates of religious events and observances. This Muslim calendar is also known as the Hijri calendar. Both calendars use the abbreviation AH (anno hegirae) to denote the year 622 CE, when Muhammad and his followers migrated from Mecca to Medina and founded the very first Muslim community.

Iranians are proud of being Muslim Middle Eastern nation which did not adopt Arabic culture along with Islam, but has staunchly kept its Persian heritage by retaining its ancient culture, language, and its Zoroastrian calendar.

This new year in Iran is 1403 (AH), but according to the Islamic calendar the current year is actually 1445 AH! This is because a lunar year falls consistently 11 days short of a solar year, so now the lunar Muslim calendar is almost half a century ahead. To add to this discombobulation, Armenians and Assyrians in Iran keep to the original Julian calendar which is some ten days out of sync with the current Gregorian calendar adopted in 1552 by Pope Gregory. Thus in the Orthodox Church in Iran celebrates Christmas on January 6th, which is our feast of the Epiphany.

Confusing, or what?!

Mar

2024

The Word made Flesh goes Digital

[From a presentation by Jeff Geerling to the Catholic New Media Conference, Kansas City, Oct.2011]

God has a communications strategy: He draws near to His creation and slowly reveals Himself to them. His most perfect word is Christ, the Word Made Flesh. It was first distributed through oral communication, then written longhand, then printed, and later spread through radio and TV. Today it can also be distributed digitally. Peter, to whom Jesus handed the keys of the Kingdom, says ‘…as each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s grace, so that in all things, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ’. (1 Peter 4:10-11)

Putting out into deep water: Jesus ask us to trust him and take a considered risk. He doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called:’…launch out into the deep, and let down your nets’… (Luke 5:4). Should we, like Simon, roll our eyes or decide not to move out of our comfort zones when God presents us with something new? Writers, reporters, and digital experts can become catechists for the Gospel story, and their contributions will give the internet Soul.

God has a social network: a Trinity of three persons who communicate perfectly. The Network is always up. There are no dropped calls!

Mar

2024

Lilli

My sister Lilli and I were born two years apart in Switzerland where spent our entire childhoods. We were very close as children, as teenagers, and later as young adults in Iran. However, we were irrevocably separated by political circumstances in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution, and we are now, forty years on, strangers who no longer enjoy the sisterly intimacy we once had. I won’t elaborate on her personal life except to say that unlike me who has been blessed beyond measure here in the UK, she has had to endure divorce, an earthquake, and prison sentences in Iran.

There is no longer any prospect of us being reunited as she can’t leave, and as an apostate with a life story in print I am definitely ‘persona non grata’. Modern technology enables us to keep touch, but it’s a tenuous link at best, beset with random internet outages in Iran, and the nebulous but ever-present fear of authorities listening-in.

When Lilli told me that my memoir In the Shadow of the Shahs was known to the Evin Prison authorities, I asked whether she regretted that I had published it. Her generous answer was “no”, but she added that since I was the bird that had managed to fly away to freedom, she hoped the book would serve to tell the world about the caged ones back home.

Mar

2024

Seven Years Already!

In 2017 the 1st edition of my book Unexpected Grace was published by Great Writing in South Carolina. Two years later in 2019, and right in the middle of the Covid-19 lockdown, the second edition Lion Hudson/SPCK published the 2nd edition In the Shadow of the Shahs I feel very blessed that it’s still doing the rounds.

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