FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT
23rd December 2007
Graphics and cartoons appear only in the printed version
INTEGRITY
A woman who had been working at an investment bank decided that it was time to go out on her own. Being shrewd and diligent, she did very well and so decided that it was time to hire an in-house lawyer. She began interviewing candidates. “As you will understand,” she said to one of the first applicants, “in a business like this, our personal integrity has to be beyond question. Let me ask you then, are you an honest lawyer?” “Honest?” replied the candidate. “Let me tell you something about honesty. There could be no better example than this: My father lent me $30,000 for my education. I paid back every penny as soon as I had tried my first case.” “And what sort of case was that?” Squirming a little in his seat he replied, “Well, Dad sued me for the money.”
TRAVELLERS TALES (35)
(Andrew Neaum in the year 2000)
Mountains over three thousand feet high are known in Scotland as Munros. While we were at Invergowrie there was a cartoon in the Spectator showing a pair of nicely rounded mountains with a Scotsman in the foreground saying to his companion: “They are Munroe’s”. It is a joke that I would not have got had I not been to Scotland and added this new little word to my vocabulary. The word Munro does not feature in my two volume edition of the Shorter Oxford Dictionary.
Tarfside and blooming heather
Towards the end of our stay at Invergowrie we took part in a parish camp. We enjoyed it as a weekend off in good company rather than as a self-conscious parish fellowship building exercise. It was held in a Retreat House owned by the Diocese of Brechin at a little place called Tarfside in the Glen Esk valley, an hour and a half north of Dundee. It comprises an old and much extended stone cottage that has been modernised and which holds about nineteen people in a couple of single but mostly in double rooms. Situated across a humped stone bridge from the tiny village which boasts neither shop nor pub, the Retreat House is set in lovely grounds that form part of the churchyard and behind which is a fine, stone, double story house known as the parsonage. Presumably once upon a time it was such, though how so small a village could ever sustain a resident parson, even in days of greater piety than ours, is hard to imagine. The hills around are all covered with heather which, while we were there, was just bursting into bloom. The Retreat House has a big kitchen with a long table to allow it to double as a dining room. There is a rather small sitting room with less than comfortable chairs, though not too bad, and an open fire, which was lit each night that we were there, even though the first evening was a warm one.
Aspens and rabbits
We made our way there after lunch on Friday turning off the highway to Aberdeen and heading up lovely quiet roads to a pleasing village called Edzell. We then turned off up the Esk valley along a winding, narrow and lovely road through birch woods, river meadows and moorland for nine miles until we arrived at Tarfside and found the Retreat House. There we discovered already present only the Potters, the family who organised the weekend and so had a cup of tea and amiable chat with them. Their two daughters were with them, but not their son. Little Naomi, who was then six years old, has the most musical and beautiful of Scots accents, I regularly engaged her in conversation to delight more in how she spoke than in what she said. She welcomed our arrival because she enjoyed the company of Elizabeth and Rachel to play with. Having chosen our rooms, we left Bob Potter to greet any others who might arrive and went first to look at the church, a pleasing, plain, stone building, though cheaply and nastily carpeted. We then went for a short walk through the village. It comprises a dozen houses at most and so it was not long before we had passed through it, turning back once we arrived at a farm and the Church of Scotland church, which was locked. On the way back we amused ourselves by pausing to drop twigs and leaves on one side of the bridge into the river and then watching them float out, or not, on the other side. We passed by a clump of aspens, identified with certainty afterwards with the help of a book on trees at the Retreat House. I took them to be aspens when we saw them because they were doing what they are always said to be doing in poems and stories, quivering noisily in only a light breeze. I discover that this is because the stem of each leaf, instead of being round is flattened and so shakes very easily. There were rabbits everywhere and all was green and lush.
Spinsters, academics and cameras
When we got back there was still no sign of anyone else, but then Maggie Astin turned up, a spinster in her mid forties. Spinsters seem to be almost an endangered species, they were once a common and enriching feature of middle class society. Officialdom now frowns even upon the use of the word, and so on wedding forms one is expected to use instead “never validly married”, a wordy and ugly equivalent which I refuse to use. Maggie is a strongly accented Lancastrian biochemist with a mad pet dog who had a go at me when I once visited her. A little later the Curries came with their three girls and a boy who I had always taken to be their son, but who is in fact the oldest girl’s boyfriend and shadow. Finally, after 10.00pm, the Schofields arrived. The husband, who is no churchgoer, appeared a bit world weary and Christian wary, but first impressions are often wrong, he was simply a little shy. He was then in the middle of some doctoral thesis in the field of mathematics, and had hopes of becoming an academic. He was going over to California with his whole family later that year. We sat and talked until gone midnight, largely inconsequentially. Derek Currie, who is a delightful fellow, showed me a digital camera that had cost about four hundred pounds, the first I had examined, a wonderful little machine. I have never been much of a photographer, but I was able to appreciate the wonders of a camera that enables you to download every picture on to your computer without printing any of them and that shows you the picture you are about to take on a little screen for approval or disapproval prior to taking it. A novelty to us then in 2000, now commonplace.
A pleasing group
It was fun to get to know them all better. More than some of the older parishioners this was a group of those who appeared devoted fans of their parish priest Ashley. With some reason too, for the more I discovered about him while over there, the more lovely a person he seems to be. He is apparently one of those people who are so tolerant and accepting that they find it difficult to declare themselves or to confront anyone. Those on the camp with us very much favoured his laid-back, unpunctual, guitar singing liturgical style, as well as his intellectual abilities and great sense of humour, and they were certainly a lovely, gifted and discerning group. We chatted on amiably, but, as always, it was a relief to get into our own room and to be able drop the professional demeanour and affability!
A ramble through the heather
As is my wont I awoke early the next morning and so Rachel and I went for a walk for two or three miles up a little road that soon turned into a track with no permitted access to any vehicles except those of farmers. We walked through clumps of old birch trees and alongside a pebble-bedded river with occasional rowan trees here and there on its banks. The heather was bursting into purple/ pink glory and the patches of lawn-thick grass that had been cleared of heather, presumably to graze sheep, were infested with far more rabbits than sheep. It was a sunny and warm morning and we were surrounded by beautiful, rounded hills, it was a truly lovely place. Not long before we turned back we spotted a deer, very red in the sunlight. We headed back for breakfast, kicking a pebble successfully along the track and then road all the way home without losing it, an old, innocent rural pastime from my youth. After breakfast we went off on another walk with some of our fellow campers. Most went with the children down towards the river. Bob Potter Margaret, Maggie Astin and myself headed up a nearby hill towards a great cairn that dominated it. It was heather country all the way and apiarists had placed lots of bee hives along the fringes for the making of heather honey to be sold at inflated prices to tourists. Once off the main track and heading up directly to the cairn we roused three or four grouse, the season for hunting them was about to begin. The cairn was far more than a conventional one and from a distance looked like a great pyramid. It turned out to be much older than we expected and was at least fifty feet high. Inside there was a dark and eerie room entered through a narrow slit that had once been barred by an iron grille gate, but was now open. There were no plaques to tell what it is for, but I learned later that it was built in the mid nineteenth century by one of the local gentry as a memorial to members of his family. Given the room and iron grille gate I wonder if it wasn’t intended as a mausoleum. It was cold and windy on the hilltop. We took a different route down that offered views of interesting, inviting and precipitously walled valleys in the distance, it was excellent and interesting walking country.
Neeps, leeks and poms
Over the road from the Retreat House was a lushly green and healthy looking paddock of young neeps, or turnips. Turnips, leeks and new potatoes I would count as my favourite vegetables. Scots, Welsh and Irish then, a real Briton. I cannot think of a vegetable that is characteristic of the English. If it is either the carrot or the cabbage I am no true English-man, for they are two vegetables I consider to be extremely dull and uninteresting. The Australians, in calling us Poms, would have us believe the potato to be quintessentially English, from pomme de terre, but the Irish have laid claim to that. (to be continued)
REST IN PEACE
The great trees on the block next door to the Rectory, over McKinney street, have been noisily and summarily felled. They provided a beautiful treescape from the Rectory, a home for Boobook owls, roosting and refuge for doves, magpies, crows and innumerable other birds both large and small, nectar for wattle birds, honeyeaters, parrots and lorikeets, shade, beauty and joy for passers by. They make way for what is likely to be a couple of “town houses”, doubtless with too tidy, prissy little clumps of silver birches and beds of roses. I discover that I am more a greenie than I suspected. It is wrong that three such mighty and lovely trees should be allowed to be done away with unmourned. May they rest in peace and their seeds germinate somewhere to grow and provide shade and beauty elsewhere in our progress mad, sun scorched, unshady city.
WHEN SANTA MET DARWIN
(A slightly edited article from the excellent Christian website “Ship of Fools” which is full of good sense as well as much satire and fun)
Children believe in Santa Claus. Creationists believe in creationism. But children eventually discard their belief in the Man in Red on the basis of evidence. So why don’t creationists?
Every few years, it seems, a minister or teacher gets in the papers for
blowing the gaff on Santa. I’m particularly fond of one story from
2002, when the present Bishop of Swindon shared with soon-to-be
heartbroken primary school children an amusing email he had
received. It offered a scientific analysis of Father Christmas and
calculated that if he really tried to deliver all those presents in one
night, he would need to go at such a speed that he would burn up in
.004 seconds, while also being several hundred million times over the
alcohol limit.
It simply hadn’t occurred to the bishop, apparently, that these children
actually believed in Father Christmas. Now they learnt that either he
doesn’t exist or he’ll explode on Christmas Eve before he gets
anywhere near their house. A few hundred girls and boys saw Santa
disappear up the chimney in smoke. I wonder, though, if among all
those disillusioned children there was one thinking: “A million miles
a minute, eh? Boy, that man’s fast. I always knew he was good, but
that’s amazing. I don’t know how he does it, but the proof’s in the
presents. I’ll leave him an extra mince pie this year.” And this, it
seems to me, is how you get creationism. (A bit of a leap, I know, but
bear with me.)
You take what was once a perfectly reasonable belief. That the world
and all its different species of life were created by God a millennium
or so before recorded history / that presents come from an obese,
flying Laplander. You add new information that makes that belief
impossible. The sciences of geology, palaeontology and evolutionary
biology / the science of Santa-combustion.
Then believers are faced with a choice. Accept this new information
and adapt your ideas to accommodate it, perhaps painfully. Or find a
way to deny the information and hold on to the comfort of elective ignorance.
The issue here is not so much that creationism is bad science – though
it clearly is and that is a serious issue. The issue here is that it is bad
Christianity: blinkered, arrogant, literalistic, paranoid, pusillanimous,
delusional, anti-truth, world-denying, and cringingly embarrassing
Dawkins bait. (This is hardly the place to dredge through the
overwhelming scientific case against creationism. It can be done
perfectly well in one word anyway: fossils.)
But the parallels between these two beliefs, creationism and Santaism,
are more extensive than you might have noticed.
Both start out as reasonable assumptions. Children are not fools, but
believe in Santa on the authority of their parents, who have proved a
reliable source of information. Just as Christians have found the Bible
an invaluable source of information about the ways of God. But new
information makes children rethink their understanding of authority:
not every story their parents have told them is literally true, but that
does not make them untrustworthy in more important things. Likewise
the mature Christian response grasps that God might have good
reasons for letting myths be told with his seal of approval on them.
The major difference between Santaism and creationism is of course
that Santaism doesn’t exist, at least not among adults. (I assume that,
but then if 3.7 million Americans believe they’ve been abducted by
aliens I should perhaps wait for a survey.)
But why is this? Why does creationism exist when it’s as obviously
untenable as Santaism? The answer is not the alleged evidence or
arguments for it, or in the vast industry devoted to propagating its
untruths. All these are the products, not the cause of creationism.
The cause of creationism is the fact that evolution (along with much
other science) is incompatible with the Christian faith of conservative
evangelicals. Evolution does not contradict all Christian faith of
course, but it contradicts the belief that the Bible is incapable of
containing error, fiction or myth. If that version of Christianity is
central enough to your life – if it’s the only version you think worthy
of the name of Christianity – you will I suppose find it easier to shut
your eyes to Darwin than to deny the faith.
But if this makes creationism understandable, it also makes it a
disgrace and a millstone for reasonable Christianity. The more
Christians maintain that evolution is incompatible with their faith
(and the more Christians maintain a faith that is incompatible with
evolution) the more Christianity is incompatible with the facts. And
so the bigger creationism grows, the more food it throws to the new
atheists. It feeds their claim that our only choice is between
backward-looking, irrational, intellectually and morally bankrupt
religion, and honest, intelligent, grown-up atheism.
I suppose this (on a totally different scale, of course) is what moderate
Muslims feel, looking at radical Islam: the more successful it
becomes, the more it discredits Islam as a whole before the rest of the
world.
Personally, I’d like to see less extremism from every side: Christian,
atheist and Muslim. In fact, I’ll put that on my Christmas list.....
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthdays
We apologize for omitting Erin Dunlop from the birthday list last week, we hope you had a lovely birthday on the 20th Erin.
Joe Pearson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23rd Dec
Hilder Lidgard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .25th Dec
Glenda Kuehnapfel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .27th Dec
Mary Pearson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28th Dec
Georgia Linton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28th Dec
Thelma Irwin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28th Dec
BOXING DAY ON WEDNESDAY
On Boxing Day, Wednesday the 26th there will be no 10.00am Eucharist. There will be one instead at 8.00am, in honour of St Stephen, and those who turn up will be remarkable.
Christmas Eve Monday 24th December
5.30pm Children’s Crib Eucharist
8.00pm Eucharist (Katandra)
11.00pm Carols
11.30pm Midnight Mass
Christmas Day Tuesday 25th December
8.30am Sung Eucharist & Carols
8.45am Eucharist (Dookie)
10.30am Eucharist and Carols
SOOTHED SOULS
The Simply Soul Soothing time of quiet reflection on Tuesdays starting at 12.15pm and ending with lunch, will not take place on either Christmas Day or New Year’s Day, for obvious reasons. It will begin again on Tuesday the 8th of January.
CHRISTMAS ON YOUR OWN
If anyone is daunted by the thought of spending Christmas Day on their own, have a word with the clergy because a married couple has offered to share their Christmas Day meal with just such a person or two.
DATES FOR THE DIARY
Dec 24th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Children’s Christmas Eucharist 5.30pm
Dec 24th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Christmas Eucharist Katandra 8.00pm
Dec 24th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Midnight Mass 11.30pm (Carols at 11.00pm)
Dec 25th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Christmas Eucharists 8.45 Dookie
Dec 25th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Xmas Eucharists 8.30am & 10.30am St A’s
June 1st . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patronal Festival
REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
At the beginning of each month this list is cleared and ALL names need putting down again on the list in the narthex and signed in. No names should be listed without a person’s permission.
Tony Armstrong, Liam Bognar, Nicky Cavill, Jack Cook, Christine Day, Emmie Dean, Donna Dyson, John Green, Pat Griffin, Kath Grills, Frank Harder, Sam Martin, John Moore, Margaret Neaum, Margaret Noble, Reg Oxenford, Margaret Osborough, Peter & Eva Swindells, Jan Riches, Robyn Stone, Lorraine Vogul, Darren, Rhianna, David, George, Glenda, Hilary, Peter, David & Judith, Layla, Roslyn, Maureen, Myra, David.
Rest in Peace: Pam Thomson,
Anniversary of death: Garnet Wall, Chloe Schaper 23rd, Christine Swainsbury 25th, Bill Brown-Shepherd, Edna Ainsworth 26th, Bernie Robins, Margot Hardwick, Ivy Doney, Jennifer Gibbins 27th, Pamela Ball, Alec Steen, Esme Dennis, David Neaum, Jack Byrne, Valma Hall 28th.
Duties for 23rd December 2007
Vigil Eucharist at 6pm 22nd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gail Bryce
Celebrant 10.30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gail Bryce
Celebrant 8.45 St. Luke’s Dookie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 10.45 St. Mary’s Katandra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Neaum
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Heather Carlyon, Pat Griffin
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Pearson, Bev Condon
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beth, Alex, Philippa
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan, Erin, Volunteer
Intercessors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Margaret Neaum, Christine Jones
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carole Henderson, Bev Condon
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ian Bryce, Christine Evans
Welcoming 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joyce Cavill, Eileen Quaife
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hilder Lidgard, Jenny Moran
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joy Campbell, Trevor Batey
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nola Brewer, Alan Akers
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Shirley Dean
Welcoming Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.30 Dorothy Cook
Mowing 22nd. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Adrian Evans
Duties for 30th December 2007
Vigil Eucharist at 6pm 29th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 10.30 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gail Bryce
Celebrant 8.45 St. Luke’s Dookie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 10.45 St. Mary’s Katandra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gail Bryce
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jeanette Smith, Victoria Heenan
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charlotte Brewer, Jenny Pleming
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michelle, Beth
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joan, Volunteers
Intercessors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Heather Fitzgerald, Bev Condon
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Margaret Neaum, Carole Henderson
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ian Bryce, Jenny Pleming
Welcoming 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heather Pearson, Bev Ralph
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Frank Steen, Nola Brewer
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Norm Mitchelmore, Joe Pearson
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alan Akers, Nola Brewer
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gwyn Cowland
Welcoming Table. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.30 Pamela Lee
Mowing 29th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gary Grant, John Horder
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 24th December Christmas Eve
Possibly not the Rector’s Day off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Children’s Christmas Eucharist
8.00pm Christmas Eucharist Katandra
11.30pm Midnight Mass (Carols at 11.00pm)
Tuesday 25th December Christmas Day
8.30am Sung Eucharist & Carols
8.45am Christmas Eucharist Dookie
10.30am Eucharist & Carols
Wednesday 26th December
St. Stephen-Boxing Day
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Thursday 27th December St. John
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
No Choir Practice
Friday 28th December
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Saturday 29th December
Associate Priest ‘s day off
7.45am Mattins and Eucharist Trad Rite Lady Chapel
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
Sunday 30th Dec (1st Sunday after Christmas)
8.30am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
8.45am St. Luke’s Dookie
10.45am St. Mary’s Katandra
5.30pm Evening Prayer