The memory of that day will live with me forever. It was November 22, 2003. The place was Ann Arbor, Michigan. Just three months earlier my kids and I had disembarked a plane at Grand Rapids Airport, just the latest in the eternal line of promise seekers to step onto these shores. We were not here because we were huddled masses yearning to be free, but because we had heard the rock n roll, seen the movies, tasted the burgers, worn the Levi’s, even met some of the people of this fair land, and we needed to come and see for ourselves if it was all real.

“God, how long is a thousand years to you?”, asked the Christian in their prayer time one morning?

“My child”, God replied, “a thousand years to me is like a minute is to you.”

“I see”, said the novice believer, who then turned to silent meditation on the vastness of God. A few moments later they asked, “Sorry God, one more question. How much is a billion dollars to you?”

“To me,” answered God, “a billion dollars is like a penny to you.”

“God, forgive my impertinence, but one more thing. Do you think you give me one of your pennies?”

And God said “Absolutely, I’ll send it in just a minute.”

So, who throws spears at you?

In Scotland he is a hero. The stuff of legends. The darling of tales of gallantry shared with patriotic nostalgia. Guardian of the Highlands, Vanquisher of Kings, Defender of the Crown. Everything really but Mother of Dragons. Even today, some 316 years later, misty-eyed Scots will raise a wee whiskey to his noble memory and pronounce, “The Little Gentleman in Black Velvet.”

That day dawned just like any other. There may have been clouds wafting overhead. There probably were; and there was possibly some sunshine too – somewhere. Somewhere else it rained. I suppose. The temperatures were likely around average for the time of the year. It was a Sunday, and so the postman didn’t deliver anything out of the ordinary, and most of the shops were shut, so no one bought anything especially interesting. Because it was Sunday some people went to church and I’m sure listened to perfectly average sermons and sung exceptionally normal hymns in a splendidly routine way.

It was not the most important invention of 1991 – that was surely the Internet, and neither was it the safest invention of 1991 – that was definitely the car airbag. But it was one of the most intriguing inventions of 1991, and certainly well worthy of taking up the first couple of minutes of this sermon. To David Kendrick, its inventor, it was a tiny piece of heaven, a speck of eternity captured in chrome, attached to a leather strap, and clamped on your wrist. It was designed with love, inspired by a wish to make the world a better place. It was David Kendrick’s gift to the world and he believed it would spur people on to acts of kindness and heroism, prod them to think deeply about life and cause them to live it wisely.

There are two types of people in the world – those of us who are happy to live with uncertainty and those of us who like to have everything nailed down; those who are comfortable with ambiguity, and those who prefer things to be precise. Now, I know which kind I am, and it’s not the one I’d like to be. I’d like to be the first kind – the person who can cope with not having all the answers. They appear so happy. No need for rules or clear instructions – they just live a life of freedom and spontaneity. But, I’m not that person. I’m the other one. So imagine my angst, my inner turmoil, if you please, when last month I found myself standing at the supermarket checkout labelled “about 25 items or less”.

Their story starts in a hospital in Winchester, MA. It starts in 1962. It starts in the maternity ward, where Judy Hoyt gives birth to baby Rick. And it starts in tragedy.

Judy and Dick, her husband, endured the anguish of an abnormal delivery. As his head crowned, it became frighteningly clear that something was terribly wrong. The umbilical cord had become wrapped around Rick’s neck, cutting off the flow of oxygen to his brain. Despite the best efforts of obstetricians Judy and Dick were sentenced to endure the devastating reality that their precious son could not move his limbs and showed few signs of being able to live a life of any kind of quality. Neo-natal specialists advised Judy and Dick to prepare for the worst. There is nothing going on in Rick’s brain, they said; his life will be short, they said, better put him in an institution so that at least he would get round-the-clock care, they chillingly said. But if this is a story that begins in tragedy, it is also laced with hope. Because, Judy and Dick were not content with that diagnosis.

For Christmas Gelind bought me a genetic testing kit. I was very pleased with this, because although I was pretty sure that there is quite a lot of British Isles in me, I was curious about what specific regions of those cool, damp, islands my ancestors haled from. And I was shocked by the results. Not the UK part - as expected, I am substantially British – 97% in fact. It is the other 3% that forced me to sit down and take some deep breaths. This 3% explains why I feel so much at home in Northern New Jersey, and why I take so naturally to lasagna. I am 3% Italian. Did I hear an ‘Amen’ from some of you? I put it down to the invasion of Britain by Julius Caesar in 55BC.

The Williams College Purple Cows, The Campbell College Fighting Camels, The Earlham College Hustlin' Quakers, The North Carolina School of the Arts Fighting Pickles, and The UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs. A handful of the strangest nicknames in college sports. Well, in the UK, they don’t have the same intensity of university athletics as here, but what they lack in imaginative college names they more than make up for in military mascots. Adopting an animal as a symbol of regimental pride goes back several hundred years and has taken on the kind of eccentric proportions that you would expect from the British. So every regiment of the British Armed Forces has its own mascot from Shetland ponies to Irish wolfhounds, goats, tortoises, antelope, there's even a battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment that has a ferret as its mascot.

But what happens when you have a re-organization of the military, and you combine two regiments each with a long and noble tradition and each with a dearly loved mascot?