NINETEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
7th October 2007
Graphics and cartoons appear only in the printed version
MILK SHAKE
“Can you give me a lift into town?” asked a man leading a cow. Yeah, I can give you a lift,” said the motorist, “but what about your cow? “No worries. She’ll just follow along.” So off they went, with the motorist checking in his rear-vision mirror. To his astonishment the cow broke into a trot. They accelerated to 80 km/h but the cow was still there, galloping along like a thoroughbred. “Amazing,” the motorist muttered, accelerating to 90......100. And the cow was still there, thundering along. When he got to 120 the motorist took another decko in the rear-vision mirror. “I don’t like the look of your cow, mate,” he said to the passenger, “Her tongue’s flopping out of the right side of her mouth.” “No worries,” said the bloke. “That just means she’s going to overtake.”
I WONDER
I wonder whether Jesus did odd carpentry jobs around people's houses? “I’m sorry, Mrs Cohen, I shan’t be in for the next forty days. No. Not really a holiday. Just coming to terms with myself, really!” Alan Bennet
HMM!
The first Rotarian was the first man to call John the Baptist “Jack”.
H L Mencken
A man who thought he was a dog went to a psychiatrist.
When invited to lie down he said, “But I'm not allowed on the couch.”
TRAVELLERS TALES (24)
(Andrew Neaum 2000)
In mid July we took the inside of a week off to visit relatives and friends in Derbyshire and Norfolk. We had the prescient good sense to pick the summer’s very best week of weather. A benign high pressure system lingered lovingly over the sceptred isle for our whole trip.
Hadrian’s Wall
We departed after church on a Sunday, managing to get away only by 1.00pm. Travelling easily and well on the lovely sunny day, we encountered only a couple of, not too serious road-work, traffic jams. About thirty miles south of Edinburgh we passed, with interest, a wind farm, great big white windmills idly turning in a gentle breeze. We then made a diversion to see Hadrian’s Wall, and were surprised to discover that anything you see of it, that is more than just a depression in the ground and a grass covered mound, is always a reconstruction. Northumberland, both its open moor-like parts and its rolling fields, we found most interesting and lovely to travel across for the first time. Rather different from the lush Scottish border country, indeed, far more Scottish.
Durham
We arrived in Durham at about 6.00pm and were satisfyingly overwhelmed by its beauty and by the prominence of the great Cathedral, revelling in the ancient cobbled streets of the old city and the Close, surrounded by ancient buildings, with people sprawled all over the lawn in the late afternoon sunshine. As we walked to the Cathedral from where we parked the car, the bells of St Oswald’s parish church were ringing for Evensong, it was very hard to resist so lovely a call to worship, but we had to, because the cathedral closes at 8.00pm. Inside we were taken under the wing of an old steward with a sibilant whistle on his S’s. He told us all sorts of interesting facts and figures. The bishop’s throne is higher above the floor than even the Pope’s in St Peter’s in Rome, and is reached by a flight of steps. How strange that our Lord’s injunction about the last being first, and leaders being servants of all rather than masters of all, should have been so totally and comprehensibly turned on its head by mother Church! How sad that down through the ages bishop have been lords, and that even today they are still sometimes “my lorded”, and saunter around in imperial purple instead of more appropriate sack cloth!
Nine hundred years old
There is something raw, rough and almost barbaric about Durham Cathedral’s heavy Norman architecture, in spite of its glorious symmetry. This is partly due to the patterned, decorative scars on the great round pillars of the nave. Apparently the circumference of these pillars is exactly the same as their height. The tombs of Cuthbert and Bede were moving to behold and the cloisters were starkly simple and lovely. Most interesting was a black line on the floor at the back of the church, beyond which women used not to be allowed to venture, for it was, after all, a monastic establishment. Also interesting were the shellfish fossils in the black, igneous rock of the thin decorative pillars running up alongside some of the stone pillars. Durham is one of the most impressive of all cathedrals and has celebrated its 900th anniversary. The great cathedrals, like the music of J S Bach, fill me with confidence in the essential veracity of our Faith. We managed to tear ourselves away eventually and pressed on to Sedgefield, putting up at a Travel Lodge there at the very reasonable cost of £39.95 for us all. Sedgefield is the constituency of the less than remarkable Mr Tony Blair.
York Minster and pork pie
Our next stop on the way down to Derbyshire was at York, primarily to look over its incomparable cathedral. The Cathedral’s impact was all that one would want it to be as we approached it on foot through the narrow, winding streets of the old city. We turned a corner and there it was, a glorious, pristine, white quarry of stone, sharp against the blue, early morning sky. Unfortunately its impact on entering it was far less than we hoped, because they were in the middle of holding “The Millennium York Mystery Play”, and so all the cathedral from the choir back to the west end, was filled with a massive stage and hundreds and hundreds of tiered seats. The play, by all accounts, is a wonderful experience and we got a hint or two of this from seeing many of the props, which struck us as most imaginatively medieval and grotesque. Certainly the show received laudatory reviews and was completely sold out. However it detracted from the pleasure of our visit, we couldn’t even get in to the famous chapter house.
What a lovely city York is, though, with its ancient narrow streets and medieval buildings. We left in mid morning, accompanied by a large pork pie bought from a butcher’s shop that was full of delicious looking and smelling, pastry- enfolded, meat concoctions, as well as by an impressive array of sausages and cuts of pork. I told the girl who served us that the pie we bought had better be a good one, because we had travelled five thousand miles to buy it. She suggested that if this was really so then I shouldn’t be so mean and should treat myself to an even bigger one!
It was a good thing that we had arrived so early in the day, because by the time we left the whole place was flooded with tourists and the car parks were full. Tourism is the present age’s industrial blight. The dark satanic mills have crumbled and their rubble helps build this new, burgeoning, ugly and tatty industry that helps destroy or obscure the beauty that it exists to display and attract.
Belper and Christ Church
We headed south, eventually finding the M1 and hurtling along in a monstrous convoy of great lorries, all presumably desperate to reach London, Dr Johnson’s “great wen”. It was with no small amount of relief and pleasure that we turned off the motorway north of Derby to wend our way to Belper, along country lanes with high hedgerows and little traffic. We arrived far earlier than expected, in time for lunch, but Margaret was suffering from a terrible travel headache, so we stopped the car in Belper’s shady Wyvern Lane, alongside the beautiful Derwent river and the less than beautiful railway line. We then left Margaret to sleep off her headache and the girls and I walked up Bridge Hill. We looked in on “the Spinney”, the family home of my father Canon David (left elderly and less than well in Brisbane under the careful eye of my brother Peter and his wife Sue). The Spinney is on the top of Bridge Hill, and we were going to stay for a couple of nights there, but not being due there until the evening we did not go in. Instead we pressed on down the Ashbourne Road to look at the house I had lived in as an eleven year old boy, for the nine months between my family’s return from Tristan da Cunha and our departure to Rhodesia. I couldn’t remember its number, but the line of houses was just the same as forty five years ago and so my memories were freshened by a twenty first century visitation. We then retraced our steps, making a walk that I had trodden to school for nine months as a boy, down Bridge hill, along the overgrown and ivied “green walk” that cuts a corner off the route to town, and then across the river Derwent bridge. This time we went to Christ Church not to school. We sat for a while in the church, me thinking of all the old dramas played out there, the worship and the singing and the sermons, all passing, for the most part unrecorded, into the forgotten past with the demise of my father’s generation, though some of these dramas have been remembered in his writings in pew sheets. We all read the stone memorial on the wall behind the choir stalls. It is in memory of a little child, the offspring of one of the early Rector’s of Christ Church, and was used once by Canon David in a sermon at St John’s Wodonga.
Bold infidelity! Turn pale and die,
Beneath this stone an infant’s ashes lie.
Say! Is he lost or saved?
If death’s by sin, he sinned, for he lies here.
If heaven’s by works, in heaven he can’t appear.
Reason, Ah! How depraved,
Revere the Bible’s sacred page,
For there the truth’s revealed, the knot’s untied.
He died, for Adam sinned: he lives, for Jesus died.
Would that all memorials were so thoughtful and lacking in treacle. The church is an unremarkable Victorian building, but it has produced some remarkable Christian folk over the years, was served by a succession of excellent priests and has a lively and colourful Anglo-Catholic history. We found it very smart from a recent restoration, and it has now a little chapel beneath the gallery at the back. Perhaps it was always there, but I certainly don’t remember it. My brother Peter and I sang in the choir there for those formative nine months so long ago, as of course did Canon David, from the age of six in 1918, with some of his brothers.
To the cemetery
After this nostalgic visit we made our way back to the car on a very warm and sunny afternoon, to find Margaret a little improved. The girls suggested that we went to see if we could find my father’s mother’s grave. They have had their interest in Belper fed by Canon’ David’s writings and stories. We found the cemetery easily enough, because it was when I was teaching in London, in the early nineteen seventies, that my grandmother had died and so I had been able to represent my father and mother, then resident in Africa, at her funeral. I could remember both the cemetery’s location and its beauty, but we couldn’t find the grave and I wonder if it is even marked. Our family is not of the grave-visiting sort...... (to be continued)
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthday
Malcolm Elliott. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13th October
John Morrow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13th October
Anniversary
Bill & Yvonne McIntosh. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9th October
FOR THE SUDAN
What a blessing the Sudanese visitors were to us last Sunday. I cannot imagine what Kevin Andrews is on about in wanting to cut down the immigration of Sudanese folk, maintaining that they are not fitting in to Australian society. They fitted in to St Augustine’s congregation very well indeed. There was a little cultural dissonance, to do with arrival times, but other than that their exuberance, faith, gratitude and politeness were reminiscent of traditional Australian society as it used to be and some of us still hanker after. Our appreciation of this was shown in generous donations from the congregation for Yuril Hospital. We raised $1041.30 which, with a further donation of $1000.00 from the parish, will contribute to the purchase of worthwhile and very necessary equipment. Thank you to all contributors and to Matoc Achol for his moving little homily and the part he has played in organising the event.
NEWS OF THE REVD GAIL BRYCE
Our fine Associate Priest is due to return on Thursday with her very elderly mother who has most wisely agreed to come and live with her family in Mooroopna. There has been much to organise in Brisbane, not only with doctors, hospitals and ongoing care, but also a 99th birthday, clearing the family home of a lifetime’s possessions with a view to the house’s eventual sale and much more. Gail’s time away has been very necessary as well as productive and worthwhile.
ANGLICAN CHURCH CALENDAR 2008
To order one of these fine Calendars for next year please place your name on the list in the Narthex. They cost $12 each.
PET BLESSING
The St. Francistide Blessing of Pets Service takes place today at 5.00pm. This is a short but lovely little service without a great deal of clerical blather, parsons generally being more merciful to animals than humans in this regard! Bring along your beloved pets, your friends and their pets.
GOOD GRIEF
On Tuesday this week, the 9th, there is a Grief Support meeting in the Narthex at 7.30pm Visitors are most welcome.
TARCOOLA EUCHARISTS
Because your Rector had a long standing arrangement to conduct a Seminar for Hospice Volunteers last week we were obliged to transfer our Tarcoola Eucharist’s to Thursday this week. So there will be Eucharists at Tarcoola both this week and probably the next as well.
PASTORAL CARE
There will be a Pastoral Care meeting on the 15th October at 1.30pm. All with an interest in pastoral care are welcome.
WORLD VISION
Shepparton World Vision Club invites you to Dinner with Tim Costello on Friday, 12th Oct. at 7.00pm in the Eastbank Centre. $50per person. RSVP BY 5th Oct. Contact Jill Clark 58252310. Invite a friend or make up a group. No tickets at the door.
CHAPLAINCY ECUMENICAL DINNER
The Chaplaincy Committee’s Ecumenical Dinner is on Fri. 19th Oct. at G.V. Christian Fellowship, Pine Road, at 6.30pm. Tickets are $12.50 per person, (primary school children $6) and are available from your church rep. or from Margaret Watters 58213136
PIES FOR SALE
Order a fine Pat Griffin’s pie. A large pie can still be ordered, either apple or apricot, for only $5.00. A medium pie costs $3.50 and pies for individuals cost $1.50. Great bargains. Extra large pies can be ordered for $12.00. The profits from these pies will be ploughed into the great Guild Cake Stall effort for the Parish Fair. Pat’s phone number: 58 311606
PRAYER LIST
We are being very thorough with our monthly clearing of the Prayer List. This is to ensure that names are not left listed unnecessarily for month after month. The list is for those in real need of prayer, and there are more than enough of such folk without the list being rendered more unwieldy than it ought to be. So don’t be offended if a name is omitted, simply write it down on the list again, each month.
DATES FOR THE DIARY
Oct 9th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Grief Support
Oct 10th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Vestry 3pm
Oct 12th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .World Vision Club Evening with Tim Costello
Oct 13th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding 3.30pm
Oct 14th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Harmony Village Memorial Service 2pm
Oct 15th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pastoral Care meeting 1.30
Oct 15 -18. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Clergy Conference
Oct 17th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Parish Council
Oct 16th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Afternoon Guild
Oct 18th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Evening Guild
Oct 19th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chaplaincy Ecumenical Dinner
Oct 25th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Parish Fair & Garden Party Committee mtg.
Oct 27th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding 1.00pm
Nov 10th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parish Fair
Nov 17th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 3.00pm
Nov 17th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 5.00pm
Nov 24th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 2.00pm
Nov 24th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 3.30pm
Dec 1st. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding 2.00pm
Dec 8th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Wedding 4.00pm
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, Nicky Cavill, Frank Harder, Vida Hardy, Thelma Irwin, Sylvia Kennedy, Denise McKellar, John Moore, Margaret Neaum, Reg Oxenford, Jan Riches, Robyn Stone, Glenda,
Rest in Peace
Nancy Cooke.
Anniversary of death
Nora Preston, Reginald Sheppard, Albert Jones 9th, Ronald Ricardo 10th, Joyce Aldred, Joyce Elsworthy 12th.
Duties for 7th October 2007
Vigil Eucharist at 6pm 6th Oct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew neaum
Celebrant 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 8.45 St. Luke’s Dookie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ian Bryce
Celebrant 10.45 St. Mary’s Katandra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ian Bryce
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Norm Weaver, Carole Henderson
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charlotte Brewer, Jenny Pleming
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Volunteer, Michelle, Beth
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jenny, Ben, Bethany
Intercessors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Carole Henderson, Andrea Fisher
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carole Henderson, Bev Condon
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jenny Pleming
Welcoming 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pat Griffin, Erma Wilson
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sandra Simonis, Hilder Lidgard
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Max Ralph, Bev Ralph
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Charlotte Brewer, John Pleming
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Val Bambrook
Welcome Tbl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.30 Dorothy Cook 10.30 Dorothy Cook
Mowing 6th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gary Grant, John Horder
Duties for 14th October 2007
Vigil Eucharist at 6pm 13th Oc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Andrew Neaum
Celebrant 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gail Bryce
Celebrant 8.45 St. Luke’s Dookie. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gail Bryce
Celebrant 10.45 St. Mary’s Katandra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Neaum
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jeanette Smith, Heather Pearson
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nancy Noonan, Joan McCann
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Volunteer, Michelle, Beth
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Peter Lear, Jack Lear, Tom
Intercessors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bev Condon, Children
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Margaret, John Griffin
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carole Henderson, Christine Evans
Welcoming 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Eileen Quaife, Val Bambrook
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jenny Moran, Charlotte Brewer
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joe Pearson, Bob Galt
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Alan Akers, Nola Brewer
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Val Rose
Mowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Pleming, Rick Coates
Welcoming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8.30 Pamela Lee 10.30Roz Dunlop
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Mon 8th October Rector’s Day off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Tuesday 9th October
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.00am Playgroup
12.15pm Simply Soul Soothing - Lady Chapel
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
7.00pm Baptism Preparation - Library
7.30pm Grief Support “Moving On” - Narthex
Wednesday 10th October
7.45am Mattins only- Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
3.00pm Vestry Meeting - Library
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Choir Practice for 10.30 Eucharist
Thursday 11th October
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.30am Tarcoola
11.00am Eucharist- Harmony Village
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Choir Practice
7.30pm Study Group - Carole’s Pad
Friday 12th October
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
3.30pm Tim Costello in the Supper Room
6.00pm Wedding Rehearsal
Saturday 13th October Associate Priest’s Day Off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist (Traditional Rite)
3.30pm Wedding
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
Sunday 14th October 19th Sunday after Pentecost
8.30am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine’s/Kid’s Church
8.45am St. Luke’s Dookie
10.45am St. Mary’s Katandra
2.00pm Harmony/Memorial Service