Some of Alan's Christian activities in the university

That gives me a wide field from which to choose, because I believe that all my activities are Christian; Christianity cannot but pervade a Christian's life, and affects all parts of it. I'm here at the university because I believe that God wants me here, and I try - without claiming any success - to live as a Christian. I'm still here, despite my retirement at the beginning of 1999, because I think there remain some things here which I can usefully do. Indeed, my decision to retire was partly moved by my belief that I was in some sense called to give more time to such activities. It is only honest to add that this has not so far happened to any great extent, but that's because of the first sentence in this paragraph.

My overtly Christian activities in the university are for the most part connected with the university Chaplaincy, because I don't think I should do things which I claim to be Christian without a visible link to the church, and because I don't think that I should try to impose myself on students' societies. Here's a list of current activities, which I shall try to remember to keep up to date, but there is no guarantee :

The Chaplaincy Network :

The network is an informal group of people who try to support the work of the Chaplaincy, and who meet from time to time during lecturing times for discussion and fellowship. At the moment of writing, we usually meet weekly shortly after noon on Tuesdays in Newman Hall. It would be comforting to believe that I shall keep the list of meetings up to date.

Chapel services :

I try to attend the Maclaurin Chapel at 12.10 p.m. on Thursdays when it happens. ( That's pretty reliable while lectures are being given in the university; there's no guarantee during vacations, study breaks, or examination periods, but we usually manage an informal service if anyone's around. ) What happens ?, you might ask. Most weeks there's a short worship service; now and then there's a forum ( not always in the chapel, but there should be a notice at the chapel if not ) when someone speaks, or someseveral speak, on a topic of interest, and discussion follows.

Real World :

I contribute to the magazine Real World, published by the Chaplaincy Network as a channel for ideas and discussion about Christianity.

If you would like to know any more about any of these activities, you are very welcome to ask me or the Maclaurin Chaplain, Uesifili Unasa.

My research is focused on rehabilitation computing because I believe that it is what I am called to do. Looking at all the applications of computers, it is hard to see them as benign; most of them are used to make preparations to kill people, to make some people much more wealthy that they need to be, to waste people's time on pointless pastimes when they would be much better engaged talking to other people, and so on. Few applications are clearly beneficial. Rehabilitation is perhaps an exception. Academically speaking, it is not fashionable or highly regarded, and there's little enough money in it. Nevertheless, there's a chance of helping someone, which is hard to believe of most other branches of computing.

- all of which sounds very worthy and impressive, perhaps, but in practice it's more good intentions than real work. The intentions are genuine, but finding time to put them into practice is another question entirely. I assert that I do other things only because the other things are genuinely more important, but you'll have to rely on my judgment for that.

Alan Creak,
2004 November.