Graham Chastney's Blessings

I wasn’t sure how I was going to get on with this book, I’m not a Guinness drinker and wondered whether that lack of connection would hinder the reading, but it didn’t. I really enjoyed it.

This book is subtitled “A Biography of the Beer that Changed the World” which is true, but this book is also a biography of a family, the biography of a company and to a certain extent the biography of a country.

I used to do some work for Diageo who now own the Guinness brand so was interested to understand the history of the company. Like many of the great brands it turns out that Guinness was born out of the vision of one man and maintained through a number of generations, each of them holding true to an overall philosophy.

Speaking as a product of my age, who only knows beer as a highly commercialised product, I was surprised by the ancient history of beer which is covered as an introduction to the book. I particularly liked the idea that St. Patrick won over many an Irish tribal chief with his tasty beer.

Arthur Guinness the founder of Guinness sounds like a fascinating person – forward looking and practical. Reading about Arthur I’m drawn to a man of action and of principle. Many companies talk about Corporate Responsibility, it’s a current trend, and Guinness stands as a historic example that few come close to.

It’s fascinating to read, though, about a family that continues on through the generations with the same set of high principles inspired by Arthur. It seems that there are only two career choices for Guinness’s – brewing or the clergy. Their influences read like a who’s who of western Christianity – Wesley, Whitfield, Barnardo, Hudson Taylor, Spurgeon, Moody, Booth, Shaftsbury.

My favourite of the family has to be Rupert Guinness who, having received £5 million as wedding gift decided that he’s going to move into a slum and to use the money to improve the community where he was living.

The book also goes on to talk about the more modern company that is Guinness and in particular their use of advertising. Imagine releasing tens of thousands of bottles of Guinness into the seas as an advertising gimmick these days – but that’s exactly what they did in 1954 and 1959, and these bottles are still being found.

I enjoy biography most of the time, and this book was no exception. It’s a great mix of history, biography and story. It’s also immensely challenging to see what one family can achieve.

Amazon: The Search for God and Guinness.

(This is the first book review I’ve done, but I think I’ll do some more of them. Let me know what you think.)

Some times you need someone to say something or do something that gives you a different perspective on things. I have been struggling with these posts a little because, to be honest, I haven’t had anything to say. Nothing has stood out as something that was worth writing about.

Today I read an interview that Adrian Warnock did with Tim Challies. Tim said this:

I blog as part of my spiritual disciplines. If I stop walking closely with God I very quickly run out of things to say. And so I blog to ensure that I continue to read the Bible, I continue to seek after God and continue to read good books. If I become lax in these activities my blog suffers. It really is a thermometer that measures my spiritual temperature. If that sounds selfish, so be it!

Now that’s a different perspective. The issue isn’t the blog, the issue is the rest of my life. So I contemplated what it was that might not quite be right and the answer was quite plain when I thought from this new perspective. I’ve been reading this book as my ‘spiritual’ book and to be honest it’s a bit too nice, perhaps safe is a better word but I think you know what I mean. For my other reading I’ve been reading Grumpy Old Men and to be honest I’m most of the way through and I’ve reached the point where there isn’t actually anything new; there’s only so much of someone else’s grumping that you can take.

This evening Sue and I (with Jonathan tagging along too) went out for a drink to the local book shop and I bought myself a new book. I don’t think this will be as nice, safe or grumpy as my current books; hopefully it will be a lot more inspiring.

Interestingly Adrian seems to be suffering from a bit of bloggers block to.

The other day I stood under three trees and looked up at them and the blue sky beyond. These were tall slender trees going straight up. I wondered what it would be like to be sat at the top of one of those trees. As we walked further on we saw a buzzard sat at the top of one of these tall slender trees observing everything that was happening around searching for some prey; a completely different perspective.

Sometimes different perspectives are exactly what you need. How do you find your different perspective? How do you know it’s a good perspective?

So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ–that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.

Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life–even though invisible to spectators–is with Christ in God. He is your life.

Colossians 3:1–3

Now there’s another perspective.