Leo lived just a few hundred yards from home. He had at least two brothers whom I remember, one who didn't appear in public very often but did sport a long, bushy beard and the other who had moved to a house a few miles away, but for as long as I can remember seemed to have his right foot in some sort of permanent plaster cast. They didn't talk much but I'm sure they had plenty to say and most times when you met any of the brothers, it was mostly a quick nod of the head though in Leo's case, he rarely acknowledged anyone who passed his way. It wasn't out of any superiority, just the habits of a shy man, more comfortable with his own surroundings. And of course he had one very strange habit. For years my memory of him is his old black bike that he took everywhere but never rode. No matter where you saw him, he would be walking alongside the bicycle, uphill, downhill and on a piece of road with no obvious incline. I just wish that I had owned a video camera to film him as part of living history.When I was young, there often was a lot happening around the farm at different times of the year but especially in June and July as dad made several fields of hay. From the cutting through the shaking and tossing, occasional lumping and final baling followed by the bringing home to the hay shed, it was a hive of activity. Then there were the annual health tests for the cattle to ensure they were disease free, the sowing of fertiliser, cutting weeds and apple time. All year there was always something happening, however small, but you'll have to take my word for it because I didn't have a video camera to capture it.
I first started to use a video recorder in 1985. I remember it well because it was around the time of Live Aid and I bought a pile of blank tapes to record the whole show. They're lying somewhere in the attic now and most of the concert is still intact , I'm sure. Over the years, I began to record all sorts of material on tape, especially important sports events including what was then Five Nations rugby and also the very irregular offerings broadcast form the rugby nations in the southern hemisphere. I even recorded lots of films, comedy shows and rare concerts by bands and singers down the years and i reckon there are some pretty interesting pieces of history in my collection now. The only problem is that the old video recorder broke a year ago and now I don't have anything to play them on. And of course I now can buy lots of the films and concerts and sports events that I painstakingly recorded on DVD, often for a fraction of the price I paid for the blank tapes. I guess that's progress!
But the great thing about video that places it above photographs is that while a picture may capture a moment in time, a film often allows you to understand more about a person. As youngest son prepares to leave for Ecuador, his big brother has made a video collection of short goodbyes from all of his friends, including his mum and dad. We watched it last Friday night and in just a few seconds, it was easy to feel the warmth and empathy from each contributor and also to see something of their honesty and their personality as they spoke. Each clip said a thousand things that a photograph could never impart and maybe it will help him through the long months away from home to realise the genuine friendship that exists.
There are lots of events in the Bible at which I would love to have been present, such as Eden, with Jonah in the boat, watching Noah build the ark, crossing the Red Sea with Moses, seeing Goliath fall, observing water becoming wine and of course being in the stable with Mary, Joseph and the shepherds. I'm not so sure I would have wanted to witness the last moments of Jesus as He hung on the cross but certainly meeting Him in the garden afterwards would have been quite spectacular as would that last view of Him ascending into the clouds. I can't even watch them on video because it wasn't around but I wonder would you have been any more convinced if you could view the whole thing on your television screen. Would it make you dedicate your life to Him? I'm not so sure. But you see, we don't need video evidence to convince us of His existence, His death and resurrection, all we need are the words of those who lived with Him and saw it at first hand and they are all recorded in the only book in which God was the editor, the Bible. John the Baptist said, after an encounter with Jesus, 'I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.' And the disciple whom Jesus loved, John, records , 'The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.' I don't think we need search any film record to convince us just the Scriptures.
