THE TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
12th November 2006
Graphics and cartoons appear only in the printed version
GIVE US A PUSH
A man and his wife were awakened one night at 3 o’clock by a loud pounding on the door, the man got up and went to the door, where he found a drunken stranger, standing in the pouring rain, asking for a push. “Not a chance,” said the husband, “It is three o’clock in the morning.” He slammed the door and returned to bed. “Who was that?” asked his wife. Just some drunken idiot asking for a push,” he answered. “Did you help him?” she asked. “No, I did not. It is three ‘clock in the morning and pouring with rain!” His wife said, “Can’t you remember about three months ago when we broke down and those two fellows helped us? I think you should help him, and that you should be ashamed of yourself!” Somewhat truculently the man got dressed and went out into the pouring rain. He called out into the dark, “Hello? Are you still there?” “Yes” came back the answer. “Do you still need a push?’ called out the husband. “Yes, please!” came the reply from the darkness. “Where are you?’ asked the husband. “Over here on the swing!” replied the drunk.
COPING WITH YOBBOS IN THE HOME
Andrew Neaum
What a terrible thing it is when the lovely little baby you conceived, gave birth to and then nurtured through bubbling, happy infancy and childhood, turns into a morose yobbo! Parents sometimes come to share with me this particular sadness that has happened to them.
Buckling at the knees
I tell them that their beloved Rector was just such a yobbo, in his own benign and largely harmless fashion, one upon a time. He had an authentic crop of pimples and blackheads, for which he discovered a dangerous cure - direct sunlight. At midday, in the clear African atmosphere provided by an altitude of 5,000 feet above sea level, ten minutes of sun on each side of the face turned him bronze, handsome and pimpleless.
He smoked a pipe and any cigarette he could afford. Including short, thin Portuguese ones that had brown, sugared paper, were unfiltered and so strong that after smoking about fifteen he developed a headache over one eye sharp enough to cross it with the other, buckle his knees and cause him to foreswear smoking for several days at least.
He wore his hair long, which in those unenlightened days and places annoyed and disgusted most adults. As a young graduate trainee-teacher he was kicked out of a school because he would not cut his hair. His hair was also curly, far too curly for his taste. He spent ages washing and drying it in ways that helped it to appear straighter. Damp weather and brow-dampening hot curries made it curl. He avoided both.
Killer myopia
He loved pop music as well as classical. It was the hey day of the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Kinks, Manfred Mann and the Byrds. He loved the stuff. After several beers he would bob, jerk, quiver, twitch and gyrate ungracefully on a dance floor, if only he could find a beautiful girl silly enough to be able to bear standing opposite so grotesque a sight. He was too vain to wear his glasses in company, particularly in female company, and so wandered around with what he liked to think was a fascinatingly irresistible and abstracted air. In reality it was mere myopia. This short- sightedness caused him nearly to kill himself and a girlfriend in the little black Morris Minor his father bought for him and his brother. The fright of this near accident overcame his vanity and thereafter he wore his glasses more often than not. They were black, thick-rimmed and thick-lensed glasses, á la Michael Caine.
He loved frequenting pubs. His favourite was called “The Pit”. There, with each successive beer he would grow wiser, more eloquent and more expansive as he argued politics, pop music, girls and not infrequently too, religion. He considered one of God’s greatest gifts to be the hangover. For it was these, not moral fibre, that ensured that drunkenness was not too great a feature of his yobbo days.
Yob to Rector
Saturday nights were usually spent gate-crashing parties. The location of parties in suburban Salisbury was passed on by word of mouth, and he and his friends would turn up. Sometimes they were welcomed to redress an imbalanced preponderance of females. Sometimes they were driven off by irate parents for being what they were, yobbos.
This conventional yobbo, me, turned into a Rector, me. It was a religious experience that precipitated the change. However, far more important was the fact that this religious experience found in me, as I passed out of the yobbo stage of life, a prepared context to define it and interpret it, to make sense of it and to appropriate it.
Years of church going; years of sometimes boring and sometimes un-boring sermons; years of parental attrition, perseverence, love and good example; years of parental encouragement, persuasion, and ingenuity; years of involvement in choir and serving, in mixing with ordinary church-going and, for the most part, particularly fine and good people who refused to be put off by my yobbishness, had not been wasted. I was familiar with the language and imagery and concept of God. A religious experience was appropriated and made effective.
Persevere
Parents and grandparents must persevere then. To take the easy road, to leave our yobbos unchurched, completely at the mercy of the materialistic, television culture of our time, unfamiliar with the language of God and prayer, a stranger to the Christian community and to its life, is to court disaster. It means that should ever our son, daughter, grandson, or grand-daughter, through God’s grace, stumble across an angel, be accosted by an arch-angel or even meet the risen Christ himself, it will be as nothing to them. They will be unable to understand the experience, to make sense of it, to interpret it or appropriate it.
Persevere then, use every stratagem available to you, to keep your yob in the parish church. To shrug the shoulders and give up is dereliction of duty. Never give up, because all is never lost, for after all, I am still a member of Christ’s sweet fold.
“If you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you”
........Jesus hung out with whores and social outcasts, was remarkably casual about sex, disapproved of the family....... urged us to be laid-back about property and possessions, warned his followers that they too would die violently, and insisted that the truth kills and divides as well as liberates. He also cursed self-righteous prigs and deeply alarmed the ruling class.
The Christian faith holds that those who are able to look on the crucifixion and live to accept that the traumatic truth of human history is a tortured body, might just have a chance of new life – but only by virtue of an unimaginable transformation in our currently dire condition. This is known as the resurrection. Those who don’t see this dreadful image of a mutilated innocent as the truth of history are likely to be devotees of that bright-eyed superstition known as infinite human progress.... Or they might be well-intentioned reformers or social democrats, which from a Christian standpoint simply isn’t radical enough.
The central doctrine of Christianity, then, is not that God is a bastard. It is, in the words of the late Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe, that if you don’t love you’re dead, and if you do, they’ll kill you..... (From a splendidly critical review by Professor Terry Eagleton of Richard Dawkins’ Book “The God Delusion”.)
A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME
Propagandists ...... adopt a slash-and-burn approach to the use of language. They seize a word rich in associations with honesty or virtue, shackle it to their special uses, flog it to death, then cast it aside, a spoiled thing, discredited, a husk. Over time a word will take the colour of the thing it is used to describe, not the other way round. ‘Cripple’ is discarded in favour of ‘disabled’, which in turn is discarded in favour of ‘differently abled’ which is then discarded in favour of ‘challenged’ — until in time ‘challenged’ begins to sound rude. For a while the new word may seem to change attitudes, but in the end the attitudes change the word. Thus has ‘gay’ become an insult among the unenlightened.
Matthew Parris - Spectator 4th November 1906
a cat, a horse and the sun
a cat mistrusts the sun
keeps out of its way
only where sun and shadow meet
it moves
a horse loves the sun
it basks all day
snorts
and beats its hooves
the sun likes horses
but hates cats
that is why it makes hay
and heats tin roofs Roger McGough
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthdays:
Frank Harder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12th November
Canon Andrew. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16th November
Nancee Beck. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16th November
WELL DONE
The Planning Committee of the Parish Fair & Garden Party congratulates the Garden Committee on the excellence of the gardens. It was their loveliness that invited and beckoned us outside with stalls, activities and concert, Well done.
FINAL MEETING
The final meeting of the 2006 Parish Fair Committee will be held in the Narthex on Thursday November 23rd at 4.30pm Please join us!
DEFERRED GRATITUDE
As this pew sheet was produced well before our Fair and Garden Party, results, thanks and congratulations must wait until next week. How good, however, has been the buzz of activity, the almost universal good will and cooperation from so great a number of people. So alive and lively has the church been this past month it could not but fail to impress even the most antagonistic of passers by.
URGENT REMINDER A.B.M.
Mission Boxes are due back NOW so that I can count and then send the money to Sydney before December. Thank you for your support of A.B.M. Nola Brewer
CAROL SERVICE
The Carol Service this year because Christmas Eve is a Sunday, is a little earlier than normal. The proposed date is Friday 15th of December. As usual we welcome singers to augment our choir. Some of the medieval carols will be accompanied by recorder and Celtic drum this year we hope. 5.30pm on Thursdays is practice time.
CHARITY CARDS
The Charity Card Shop is open again this year, but in the Scots Church Hall, the one behind the Op Shop, not in the Corio Centre as it was last year. The shop opens after 10.00am with lots of lovely cards and merchandise as usual.
CHURCH CALENDARS
If anyone still wishes to order a Calendar please place your name on the list on the Narthex Table.
PRAYER LINE
The name of anyone in need of emergency and immediate prayer should be phoned to Hilary Akers who will then activate the “Prayer Line”. Her phone number is: 58314267
SERVERS PRACTICE
There is a Servers Practice at 4.00pm on Thursday 23rd of November. This is for all servers, and also Eucharistic Assistants who are able to come, because they sometimes have to double as servers and a few bad habits have sneaked their way in to how we do things. For example strolling around with our hands swinging by our sides instead of discreetly together!
SIMPLY SOUL SOOTHING
Don’t forget this short, peaceful, lunchtime act of reflective worship on Tuesdays at 12.15pm. It is followed by a light lunch in the narthex, an opportunity to chat to good folk! Something a little different to invite a friend along to.
GRIEF SUPPORT
Grief Support sessions will recommence on Tuesday evenings, beginning on the 14th of November at 7.30pm These begin with information sessions about what is “normal” in the grieving process and are followed by practical sessions during which individuals are encouraged to address their own grief. Each session concludes with supper and a time to get to know other members of the group.
DIARY DATES
Nov 12th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Memorial Service Harmony Village 2pm
Nov 14th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grief Support Group
Nov 15th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parish Council
Nov 16th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Evening Guild
Nov 18th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding 1.30pm
Nov 21st. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afternoon Guild
Nov 21st. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Baptism Preparation
Nov 23rd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Post Fair meeting
Nov 24th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Outreach cut off for articles
Nov 25th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 11.00am
Dec 2nd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding 1pm/Wedding 3pm
Dec 2nd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Seasonal Garden working bee
Dec.9th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 2pm
Dec 10th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 3pm
Dec 15th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carol Service
Dec 16th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding
Duties for 12th November 2006
Celebrant 6.30pm Sat 11th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gail Bryce
Celebrant 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant Dookie 8.45. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Neaum
Celebrant Katandra 10.45. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gail Bryce
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gwyn Cowland, Jeanette Smith
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Liz Booth, Bev Condon
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michelle
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jenny, Joe, Zebedee
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Griffin, Margaret Neaum
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bev Condon, Jenny Pleming
Intercessors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Victoria Heenan, Children
Welcoming 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jeanette Berry, Gwen Betson
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Charlotte Brewer, Nola Brewer
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trevor Batey, Joy Campbell
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charlotte Brewer, Nola Brewer
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pat Gibson
Mowing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lionel Waterson, Adrian Evans
Welcomers Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pamela Lee
Duties for 19th November 2006
Celebrant 6.30 Saturday 18th Nov. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gail Bryce
Celebrant Dookie 8.45. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gail Bryce
Celebrant Katandra 10.45. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Margaret Neaum, Frank Harder
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hilder Lidgard, Christine Evans
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beth
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Heather Fitzgerald, Bev Condon
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ian Bryce & Maureen Cormican
Intercessors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pat Griffin, Mary Pearson
Welcoming 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joy Campbell, Bev Reither
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Frank Steen, Hilder Lidgard
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bob Galt, Norm Mitchelmore
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jenny Pleming, John Pleming
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Erma Wilson
Mowing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Russell Family, Michael Egan
Welcomers Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Margaret Hoare, Mary Pearson
REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
Liam Bognar, David Burrow, Hamish Fisher, Melissa Galizia, John Green, Catherine Herschig, Judith James, Leon Meyer, Marvin Mould, Margaret Noble, Margaret Osborough, Jan Riches, Peter and Eva Swindells, Peter & Margaret Williams, Andrew, Anne, Betty, Cait, Camron, Cheryl, Claire, David, Don, Glenda, Gwen, Isobel & Kay, Heather, Jim, Jonathan, Kathy, Les, Margaret, Marlene, Peggy & Carers, Ross, Su, Wayne.
Rest in Peace: Marie Peoples, June Kemp
Anniversary of Death: Horace Preston 12th, Douglas Keem, Eric Evans 13th, Margaret Fairless, Sarah Morrow, John Griffiths 15th, Arthur Basset 16th, Doris Stansfield, Thomas Trevaskis, Cecil McKellar, Stanley Houghton, John Jeffery 18th,
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 13th November
Rector’s Day Off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Tuesday 14th November
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
12.15pm Simply Soul Soothing - Lady Chapel
7.30pm Grief Support Group Meeting
Wednesday 15th November
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist- St Augustine’s
11.30am Bible Study - Library
12.00noon Ethics Committee
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
7.30pm Parish Council
Thursday 16th November
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.30am Tarcoola Eucharists
11.00am Eucharist - Harmony Village
1.30pm Evening Guild
5.30pm Choir Practice
7.30pm Bible Study - Narthex
Friday 17th November Hugh of Lincoln
7.45am Mattins and Eucharist - Lady Chapel
6.00pm Wedding Rehearsal
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Saturday 18th November Hilda of Whitby
Associate Priest’s Day Off
7.45am Mattins and Eucharist - Lady Chapel
1.30pm Wedding
6.30pm Vigil Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Sunday 19th November 24th Sunday after Pentecost
8.30am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
8.45am Eucharist - St. Luke’s Dookie
10.45am Eucharist - St. Mary’s Katandra
5.30pm Evening Prayer