ADVENT SUNDAY
28th November 2010
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
FOUND WANTING
Before mental asylums began to be replaced by community houses for those troubled by mental disorders, a visitor to Aradale in Ararat asked the Director what tests were used to decide whether or not a patient should be institutionalized. “Well,” said the Director, “our quickest and easiest test is to fill up a bathtub with water and then offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the tub.” “Ah, I see,” said the visitor. "A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup.” “No!” said the Director, “A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?”
RETURNING TO ZIMBABWE (1)
(Andrew Neaum in the year 2000)
When almost eleven years old I left my personal Garden of Eden, the island of Tristan da Cunha on a huge BP oil tanker. I had lived there for three and a half years with my family, running barefooted in summer, untroubled by any form of motorised traffic, paved roads or civilization’s dangers. The mighty South Atlantic was never out of earshot and albatrosses soared.
After nine months in England we all headed for what was to become another personal Garden of Eden to me, rural Zimbabwe. In those long distant days it was called “Southern Rhodesia” and was a part of the “Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland”.
St Bernard’s Mission
There my father became priest in charge of a large mission district. Its headquarters was a mission station called St Bernard’s situated about twelve miles from a town then known as Marandellas, now Marondera. To my boyish eyes it was a beautiful place to grow up in and to learn to love Africa. It was set amidst lovely brachystegia woodland, a bird-watcher’s paradise, and among the baboon and dassie inhabited granite bouldered kopjes that are so typical of Zimbabwe. I loved it there
In “Southern Rhodesia”, then “Rhodesia”, then “Zimbabwe-Rhodesia” and finally “Zimbabwe” I remained for twenty seven years. I left as a young man for five of those years to teach in London for a year and a half and then to study theology in South Africa. Zimbabwe helped form me and educated me. It also filled me with a love for Africa and Africans that I still have.
Inevitably then, as a part of my very recent six month nostalgia binge (courtesy of St Gough Whitlam and his greatest legacy “long service leave”) I determined to return and visit again my second personal Garden of Eden.
To what purpose though? Why revisit a country so beautiful in one’s memory and so tortured by bad politics and evil government in reality now? Didn’t Jesus himself say “leave the dead to bury the dead....” meaning perhaps that we should leave the past to the past and get on with living the present and that to look too much over your shoulder could well dessicate you, turn you, like Lot’s wife, into a pillar of salt!
Demythologising the past
But then we are products of the past, are we not? Who we are is determined largely by the past. Essentially we are the sum total of all our experiences. So truly to understand ourselves we need not only to acknowledge our past, but also to be informed and knowledgeable about it. More than that, we need, possibly and above all else, to demythologise our past, that is, to divest it of silly romanticism, wish-fulfilment, and sentimentality, to smash nostalgia’s rose-tinted spectacles in order to see our personal history more for what it really and truly was and is. Then perhaps we will be truly enabled better to see ourselves for who we really and truly were and are.
The sad victims of Alzheimer’s disease eventually cease to be who they are just because they begin first to lose their immediate past, their short term memory, then even their distant past, their long term memory. Not knowing who they were means that ultimately and tragically they can no longer be who they are.
Revisiting the past, refreshing and renewing one’s view of old places, recalling old times, so long as it is not obsessive, so long as it is more critical than it is worshipful is, I like to think, an important part of intelligent and sensible living.
So over the next few months, in pew-sheets and sermons, I shall be doing a lot of recounting and reflecting upon the recent journeys I have made into my English and African past.
The Christian Faith is built on narrative, on story. It is about people and what happened and in the telling of what happened, in the telling of the story, finding meaning, purpose, direction and God. The Christian Creed and the whole great, sophisticated edifice that is Christian theology, grows out of telling and retelling, living and reliving, acting and reenacting the events and happenings recorded in four little stories to do with the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. There is pattern and meaning and God to be detected in personal history, in yours and in mine, for after all we walk our life, as Christians, hand in hand with God. To be a Christian we need to be story-tellers, lovers of stories.
Gateway to paradise
Diana and I, after an eventful and very busy period based in ethnically diverse and people-teeming Tooting in London, headed for respite, relaxation, honeymoon and adventure in Cape Town. Cape Town is one of the very loveliest of the world’s cities, and to me has always been a gateway to the Garden of Eden. There we based ourselves at the most amiable and convivial home of my sister Susan and her husband Bob. Their house in Muisenberg is a mere few hundred yards from a glorious beach on False Bay which when we arrived was alive with blowing Southern Right Whales, sporting amorously very close to shore. While there we began to plan a trip to Zimbabwe and Lesotho. Lesotho was where a young Diana and her late husband Michael served as young missionary teachers and so a nostalgia tinted Garden of Eden to her.
We would have loved to repeat the three days and nights train trip to Southern Rhodesia that I had made with my family in late 1956. The trains then had a little verandah at both ends of each carriage from which you could gaze at lovely Karoo sunsets as the train engine’s plume of smoke slowly smutted your brow specks of soot. One of the reasons I love Devenish, on the back road to Wangaratta, is because it reminds me of those little Karoo railway towns at which the steam engine stopped to pick up water. We soon learned, however, that the trains were not running at this time and also that car hire companies in South Africa baulked at allowing their vehicles to cross into Zimbabwe. We did investigate one hire firm that allowed the crossing, but it appeared a shonky and dubious organisation and so instead opted to travel by bus, travelling light, a mere haversack each. This has always been Diana’s way and she is a very experienced traveller. I did not take my laptop computer, just a tiny little pocket notebook and biro for diary entries. We took few clothes, little worth stealing and body belts for cash.
Johannesburg
We flew up to Johannesburg and took a taxi to the great central station, arriving with hours to spare before the bus was due to leave. Johannesburg has a reputation for being a dangerous city, hence the taxi. Our taxi driver was a talkative and friendly fellow who told us that as a youngster he and his family had been refugees in Zimbabwe, and so we were able to share reminiscences. The hospitality of Zimbabwe to South African exiles or refugees before South Africa’s independence might in part explain the tolerance of millions of Zimbabwean refugees now by South Africa.
We found Jo’burg, like almost all the cities of South Africa, to be now a “black” city. The whites have retreated to their suburbs to live behind razor-wired walls and to shop in con-genial suburban malls. Murder, rape and car hijacking statistics are high enough to curdle the blood. To look carefully at such statistics and understand them, though, shows that per capita these horrendous statistics are not hugely different from many other African and South American countries with huge disparities in wealth and large shanty town settlements. One of the most salutary sights in Cape Town is a shanty town on the way from the airport into that most beautiful of cities. Such townships are now euphemised as “informal settlements”. The murder statistics in South Africa in 2009 were apparently second in the world to Colombia.
Having explored the large bus and railway station and established from where our bus was due to leave and that our tickets were valid we decided to venture out into the city to find its Anglican Cathedral, which is close to the station. We found it easily enough through streets lined with noisy vendors of all sorts of fruit, vegetables, DVD’s and many other more unlikely good. The noise and crowds and litter are very much a part of life in black African cities, and in their way exhilarating and fun, though not the litter. To enter the Cathedral was to step out of hot, vibrant and dirty cacophony into cool, clean tranquillity. It is a lovely building with a fine tradition. We had it to ourselves except for a cleaner. There was little literature available, or signs of the cathedral’s life, but it was good to be there and to sit and be quiet. It appears that a new dean has recently been appointed. A fellow student and friend of mine when I was at theological college in Grahamstown was made dean some years ago. He was a quiet, godly fellow and I believe found the job very difficult. To stand in the tradition of giants like Gonville Ffrench-Beytagh and Desmond Tutu and to attempt successfully to relate the quiet, cultured Anglican tradition to the frenzied world outside the Cathedral’s walls would require personal resources, creativity, imagination and courage beyond most of us, I would imagine.
We left the Cathedral refreshed to await the departure of our well-packed bus for Beit Bridge and Zimbabwe. (to be continued)
APHORISM
Old men love to give advice to console themselves on not being able to set a bad example. La Rochefoucauld
LONG MARRIAGES
One of the troubles about modern marriage is that people constantly worry whether they are happy in it. By being married for 63 years, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh remind us that it is possible to outlive this wearying question. I am sure they are happy, but the passage of time makes the precise state of a couple’s feelings less important than the grand and beautiful fact that they have endured. A single choice, long, long ago, has made them almost permanent, like part of a landscape. We should wish them the fate of Ovid’s old couple, Philemon and Baucis, who, when they died, were turned into trees whose boughs intertwined.
Charles Moore “The Spectator”
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthdays
Aileen Parry. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29th Nov
Joyce Auldrige. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sunday 2nd Dec
Lillian Walter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Tues 4th Dec
Elaine Brown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wed 5th Dec
Anniversaries
Betty & Barrie Pleming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mon 3rd Dec
ST MARY’S KATANDRA PATRONAL FESTIVAL
All are invited to the St Mary’s Katandra Patronal Festival which takes place on Wednesday 8th of December at 8.00pm. Anyone who would like a lift with the Rector has only to ask, so do so, pleasant company on the way and even better when you get there
CHRISTMAS NATIVITY PLAY
Well, here we are again! Christmas time is creeping up on us fast and it is time to organise our Christmas Nativity Play. If you would like to be in it and have a major role, try to come along on Sunday 5th December to the 10.30 service for a practice. We will be presenting the play at the last Children’s Church for 2010 on the 12th December. Hope to see you there!
ROSTERS
We will soon be doing the duty rosters for next year. If you wish to go on to or come off a roster please indicate this clearly on the sheets in the narthex. The word “duty” is a fine one too little embraced these days. Not so at St Augustine’s I trust, inundate us with offers please.
LECTIONARIES
Anyone who would like to purchase a Lectionary, please put your name on the list in the Narthex and signify which you want. The “New” is the one used for Sundays. The “Old” we use on weekdays.
CHARITY CARD SHOP
Please note that the card shop is now open and our own Anglicare Cards are on sale there. Please give this your support: Scots Church Hall, Fryers Street. Mon-Thurs from 9.30-4.30; Fri 9.30-6.00; Sat 9.30- noon.
PRAYER LIST
The Prayer List will be cleared and started again next week with the new month. Names of those requiring prayer need putting once more on the sheet.
OUTREACH DEADLINE
Please have all articles to Helen by the 5th December either by email hmalcolm @bigpond.com, or to PO Box 123 Shepp-arton 3632, or drop them into the office.
EfM ENROLMENT
Anyone interested in enrolling for EfM next year, please talk to Helen or one of the group to find out more. Enrolment forms and money need to be with Helen by 1st December.
FRIENDSHIP GROUP
Our Christmas Break-up is to be held on Tuesday 14th December at 1.30pm in the Supper Room. Please bring a plate of food and a small gift to the value of not more than $5. We are friends to all and so all are very welcome
“MOVING ON”
GRIEF SUPPORT GROUP
On Tuesday 14th December at 7.30 in the supper room. Topic to be considered: “What was my loved ones gift to me”
Anglicare Christmas Appeal
We will be collecting gifts for Anglicare for three weeks. Gifts are needed for families in need. For all ages from Babies to Grandparents. A list of ideas/suggestions can be obtained from Pat and John Griffin if you need one.
CAROL SERVICE
The Carol Service this year will be held on Thursday the 16th of November at 7.30pm. Afterwards, as is usual, there will be a bit of a bash in the Narthex, if folk bring along a bottle or two or a plate or two. The choir have been at hard and effective work and so the service should be better even than usual! This is almost certain to be the very best Carol Service in Shepparton, the readings thought-provoking and out of the ordinary and the music a delight. Please attend and bring a friend.
ADVENT STUDY
There will be an Advent Study group with the Rector on Tuesday evenings from 7.00pm. We will probably be considering some poems appropriate to Advent, unless he changes his mind before then. In the Library this Tuesday 7.00pm.
CANDLESTICKS
On December 19th we will be blessing the fine Acolyte Candlesticks and stands kindly donated by Peter Swindells. This brings us up to a full complement of eight.
PARISH FAIR AND GARDEN PARTY
At a well attended and talkative final meeting of the organising group held on 25th November, the Treasurer, Norman Mitchel-more gave a preliminary financial report. Some accounts are outstanding but a very realistic estimated amount for such accounts has been included.
Gross takings at the Fair $13,638.55
Less - Expenses 1,919. 89
Plus- Sept. Garage Sale 2,004.00
$ 13,732.66
Major Raffle $7,305.70
TOTAL RAISED $ 21,028.36
This is a wonderful effort and the meeting noted how effective the threat of rain induced “plan B” had been. Never again shall we fear the weather, we are an adaptive and ingenious lot. Congratulations to all.
SIZZLING SAUSAGES
Next Sunday, from 12 noon there will be a BBQ to welcome back incidentally your Rector and especially Diana. Sausages and bread will be provided, bring along anything else you would like to eat or share or both. This should be a relaxed and happy occasion unmarred by speechifying or formality. Don’t miss it.
CHRISTMAS SERVICES
Christmas Eve Friday 24th December
5.30pm Children’s Crib Eucharist
8.00pm Eucharist (Katandra)
11.00pm Carols
11.30pm Midnight Mass
Christmas Day Sat. 25th December
8.30am Sung Eucharist & Carols
8.45am Eucharist (Dookie)
10.30am Eucharist perhaps with Carols
Boxing Day Sun. 26th December
10.30am Eucharist St Augustine’s
DATES FOR THE DIARY
Dec 4th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Men’s Breakfast
Dec 4th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Wedding
Dec 5th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Practice for Christmas Nativity
Dec 5th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Youth & Family Service 4pm
Dec 6th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Last Arise 255 for the year
Dec 8th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St. Mary’s Patronal Festival
Dec 12th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kid’s Church, Christmas Nativity
Dec 14th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Moving On” Grief Support Group
Dec 14th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Friendship Group
Dec 15th. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parish Council
Dec 16th . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carol Service
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.
For prayer:
Joyce Auldrige, Norma Anderson, Vicki Anderson, Jeffrey Andrewartha, Deb Bagley, Kerrie Baldwin, Laura Bates, Jan & Neville Black, Liam Bognar, Ian Carmen, Tom & Val Downie, Mervyn Durran, Michael Egan, Mariam Fifoot, John Green, Kath Grills, Frank Harder, Margaret Kidman, Tess & David Kane, Hilder Lidgard, Albert Oxenbury, Joan O’Reilly, Isabelle Richards, Dawn Scott, Suzanne Singh, Peter Swindells, Patricia Sparkes, Heather Steen, Kaye Teague, Athol & Walter, Bill & Glenda, David, Lynn, David & Judith,Penny & Tom Patricia, Stewart, Shirley.
Rest in Peace
Brian Loxley.
Anniversary of death:
John Ross-Edwards, Gwynneth Williams 29th, Zvezda Nedelkovski, Doris Young 30th, Judith Bear, Edna Hooper 1st, Edith Waite 2nd, Zaidee Turner 2nd, Georgie Gribble, June Kemp, Marie Peoples 3rd, Yvonne Guthrie, Mavis Hildyard 4th.
Duties for Sunday 28th November
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Carole Henderson Victoria Heenan
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mary Pearson, Nancy Noonan
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Michelle, Beth
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Greg, Vanita, Valerie
Intercessors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Heather Fitzgerald
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Carole Henderson, John Griffin
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Christine Evans, Jenny Pleming
Welcomers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Eileen Quaife, Gwen Betson
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Frank Steen, Nola Brewer
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Trevor Batey, Joy Campbell
Sidespeople10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charlotte Brewer, Nola Brewer
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gwyn Cowland
Welcoming Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy
Lawn Mowing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .none this weekoo
Duties for Sunday 5th December
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gwyn Cowland, Heather Fitzgerald
Readers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Christine Jones, Samantha Conway
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beth, Michelle
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan McCann
Intercessors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Norm Weaver, Christine Jones
Euc.Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H. Fitzgerald, C. Henderson
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Greg Pestell, Joe Fernandez
Welcomers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shirley Dean, Bev Reither
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sandra Simonis, Charlotte Brewer
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joe Pearson, Norm Mitchelmore
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Lesley Kenna, John Pleming
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pat Griffin
Welcoming Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bev
Lawn Mowing 20thNov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gary Grant, John Horder
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 29th November Rector’s Day off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Tuesday 30th November
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.00am Playgroup - Roz’s Room
12.30pm Grutzner House Christmas Lunch
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
7.00pm Advent Study - Library
Wednesday 1st December
7.45am Mattins only- Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
4.00pm Eucharist -Banksia
Thursday 2nd December
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.00am Eucharists - Tarcoola
10.15am Eucharist - Grutzner
11.00am Eucharist- Harmony Village
2.00pm Afternoon Tea - Ave Maria
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Choir Practice
Friday 3rd December
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.30am Catechesis of the Good Shepherd
11.00am Mercy Health
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
6.30pm Wedding Rehearsal
6.30pm Shepparton Inter Church Council Dinner
Saturday 4th December
7.45am Mattins and Eucharist Trad Rite Lady Chapel
8.00am Men’s Breakfast
12.30pm Wedding
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
Sunday 5th December Second Sunday in Advent
8.30am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine’s/practice for play
8.45am St. Luke’s Dookie
10.45am St. Mary’s Katandra
12.15pm Orthodox Baptism
4.00pm Youth Service