Dedication...

Sometimes, we talked about keeping the faith or being dedicated to living out our lives heroically for a certain cause. But would you do the same thing for a Rubik's Cube - for solving it, that is?

I know, I know. There are people - geeks, children, adults - who have solved the puzzle within minutes, days or weeks. So, what's the big deal in all this? Nothing, really. Except when you have a Graham Parker who finally solved the Rubik's Cube after 26 years of constant cracking at it!

"I cannot tell you what a relief it was to finally solve it," the 45-year-old from Portchester, Hampshire, said. "It has driven me mad over the years – it felt like it had taken over my life. I have missed important events to stay in and solve it and I would lie awake at night thinking about it. 'I have had wrist and back problems from spending hours on it but it was all worth it. When I clicked that last bit into place and each face was a solid color, I wept."

His wife is the real saint here, having to bear the terrible strain that Parker's obsession had put on their marriage. Parker had apparently spent somewhere in the vicinity of 27,400 hours playing with his toy, he claims it drove him mad and took over his life. While Parker wept with joy when he finally cracked the puzzle, I am very doubtful his wife did. But her willingness to stay in that marriage - that is dedication!...

Another dedicated group of artists managed to create art by a public beach guerilla-style. They managed to paint over a plain looking concrete block and changed it into a giant-size Rubik's Cube that now sits along the shore of the Maroubra beach in Sydney, among kids with surfboard, bleached hair and suntans. Apparently, this 'art' was created in the middle of a warm December night (last year), in what has been described as a 6-hour escapade involving two artists and a third "police look out".

Now, if we can translate all these into something more pronounced when we are dealing with matters of our own faith and lives with our God...