16th January 2011
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
INSUBORDINATE
A young naval sub-lieutenant found himself with half a day of shore leave, and decided to spend it profitably by taking a tour of a coal mine. After the tour, he took a shower and dressed in his uniform, ready to re-embark. On his way back, he met a senior officer, who asked him to carry his golf clubs back. He was a little apprehensive at the sight of the rather cantankerous Admiral of the Fleet, who was directly in his path at the gang-plank, but after a quick tidiness check he decided to walk on. For once, the old boy seemed to be in a good mood. After returning the young man's salute, he said, "Hello my boy. Been playing golf?""No sir," replied the sub-lieutenant, "I've been down a coal mine;" and he was immediately put under arrest for insubordination.
THIS AND THAT
Andrew Neaum
Many thanks to Joan and Frank Harder who sent a gift and card to each member of the Parish Council in recognition of our work during the year. This little act of thought-fulness was much appreciated by us.
Someone gave me a book, possibly for Christmas, called "More Mere Mortals" and sub-titled "Further historical maladies and medical mysteries of the rich and famous." I didn't record who gave it to me, but it is a little gem, made up of witty, but also sometimes very perceptive, vignettes on the illnesses and the effects thereof on famous figures in history, folk such as Job, Moses, Queen Victoria, Freud, Picasso and so on. They make ideal reading-aloud-to-share-items, and both Diana and I love them. The one on Job is a little masterpiece on depression, and how comforting to learn of that monster Mao's miserable and unhappy descent into decrepitude and death! Whoever gave me the book, please own up to enable me to thank you.
I was reminded recently of Kingsley Amis' parody of Princess Di's favourite, if some-what platitudinous verse. Di's piece goes:
Life is mostly froth and bubble,
Two things stand in stone:
Friendship in another's trouble,
Courage in your own.
Kingsley Amis' version, which I fear is closer to the truth, goes:
Life is mostly toil and labour,
Two things see you through:
Gloating when it hits your neighbour,
Whining when it's you.
My daughter Lil rolled their family car a week last Thursday. She was on her way home along the Old Dookie Road and lost control in loose gravel. Neither she nor the two little girls were hurt, thanks to seat belts, but a frightening event, and to see the car on its back, deserted and with its legs in the air as a Wiggles' CD still played, devastated us. A Good Samaritan did not pass by on the other side of the road and took them all off to safety at Dookie College, where they were offered kindly hospitality and comfort, as we made our way there to assist. It was strangely reassuring to learn that the hospitable wheat paddock, with only a fence and no trees to hit, was provided by the friendliest of good folk, Ian and Jenny Shields!
Four hundred years ago, in 1611, a convergence of circumstances and developments gave rise to the publication of one of the English language's most pre-eminent books – the King James Version of the Bible. I still often find myself yearning for it, offended by the relentless political correctness of so many modern version. Its version of the Gospels I particularly miss, and the perceptive will have noticed that at Midnight Mass I used its version of St Luke's birth narrative, unable to bear the alternatives on such a night. The University Church in Oxford, St Mary's, where David and Rachel now serve as Curate together, is using the King James Version in its worship for the whole year. I have half a mind to do so here too, but do not think it would be widely appreciated. Its rendering of the Epistles does sometimes seem all but incomprehensible. However we do use it, with the traditional rite, on Saturdays at a quarter to eight!
I wonder if there is something especially moribund about nominal Shepparton Anglicanism. There were no confirmation candidates last year and so far this year I have but two punters! I stayed with a Rector in central Melbourne recently. His congregation appears to be smaller than ours, but his Christmas numbers were much higher, seven hundred at least. Nominal Anglicans in Shepparton are more pathetic than any I have experienced elsewhere, I think. Even Christmas appears to move only their saliva ducts and bowels!
The short story writer and satirist Ambrose Bierce in his famous "Devil's Dictionary" defines a bore thus: A person who talks when you wish him to listen.
RETURNING TO ZIMBABWE (7)
Andrew Neaum
After visiting the house we had built on St John's mission Chikwaka almost fifty years ago, and in which we lived for four or five years, we walked down the hill to visit the Shearly Cripps Orphanage. This is now a substantial institution, caring for about eighty children, many of whom have lost their parents to AIDS. We were welcomed and shown around by Sister Dorothy, one of the friendly Anglican nuns who help to run the place. Although by Australian standards the facilities would be deemed unacceptably primitive, it has a lovely atmosphere and seemed to us to be clean and wholesome. The Anglican nun, Sister Dorothy, who showed us round was a cheerful and welcoming delight and the children we encountered appeared happy, lively and contented. As I hope the photograph shows the orphanage has its own simple architectural beauty, though like nearly all worthwhile institutions in Zimbabwe it suffers from lack of funding. There have been several online campaigns to raise money to help keep it afloat, as well as to support other ventures and projects in the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe. The best of them are under the auspices of the remarkable priest I was ordained with, Father Nicolas Stebbing. There is much further information about these, as well as accounts of his frequent visits to Zimbabwe on the following website, if anyone is interested:
http://mirfieldcompanions.org.uk/zimbabwe.htm
The home is named after Arthur Shearly Cripps, one of Anglicanism's great, if largely unsung, heroes.
Colonialism and the activities of early missionaries are denigrated and decried by the politically correct, but nearly always there is a good as well as a bad side to humankind's activities. Throughout the British Empire, many, many well educated, brave and idealistic men and women felt themselves called to sacrifice their comforts, prospects and even their lives to aid rather than to exploit indigenous people. Arthur Shearly Cripps, a priest, short story writer and poet was one such.
Arthur Shearly Cripps
He is something of a legend in Zimbabwe. Born on the 10th of June 1869, he died on the 1st of August 1952. He read history at Oxford, trained as a priest and became a missionary for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (as much later did my father). Intent on working in Mashonaland, after reading Olive Schreiner's Trooper Peter Halket of Mashonaland, a strange book, it is fiercely critical of Cecil Rhodes and his methods. From 1902 Cripps was priest-in-charge of Wreningham Mission near Enkeldoorn (now know as Chivhu), proving to be a doughty defender of the rights of Africans and coming into conflict with the British South Africa Company over land distribution. He was given the Shona name Mpandi, or ‘the man who walks like thunder' and was one of those wonderful, eccentric Anglicans that bureau-cratic bishops and procedures, as well as political correctness have all but leached out of our wonderful church.
In my first parish as a priest in Mashonaland I was privileged to have as a parishioner probably the best poet I have ever been at all close to, a splendid Anglican in his own right called Noel Brettel. In his remarkable book which he calls "an essay in autobiography" entitled "Side-gate and Stile", he devotes an eloquent and perceptive chapter to Cripps and to his old Mission Church, euphoniously called, Maronda Mashanu (The Church of the five Wounds). Noel Brettel was for many years the headmaster of a school in Enkeldoorn (Chivhu) and used to visit the ancient and all but blind Cripps to read verse to him. He says of Cripps: .....he was to follow the barren and often bitter path he set himself, striving to identify himself with his people with a ruthless, logical self-surrender that was to place him well-nigh among the saints. From Wreningham began those ceaseless journeyings along interminable winding footpaths that are perhaps even now, for the evangelist, the explorer or the exploiter, the only sure way into the heart of Africa. It must have been a life of incredible hardship for one so genteelly nurtured and he took an austere joy in making no concessions. He fed only on the coarse food the people could give him,
Trudging her hill-paths,
From sun-up to sun-down,
Gnawing her corncobs
And munching her groundnuts.
Mealie-meal, millet-meal, munga-meal (tasting, he said, like new-baked bread savoured with wood-smoke) was all he expected when he saw at the end of his day's path in the dusk, the line of huts ‘spearing the skyline', that and a bed of rush-mat on a mud floor, or as often as not, a ‘roofless night-bed walled by boulders gray'....
That there should be an orphanage named in his honour is wholly right and fitting and it was lovely to revisit it and be made so welcome.
Mangwendi to Marondera
Before we left St John's we were invited into the office of Fr Mutukwa in the second house we had built at St John's all those years ago for my father's assistant priest, a splendid man called Onias Chikandiwa. Built of stone rather than the local, homemade brick it was nonetheless in obvious need of repairs to its ceiling and roof. We had a brief chat about his work and life and the troubles of the diocese and we pledged to keep in touch.
From St John's Chikwaka we headed back to the main Mtoko road, turned right towards Mtoko, crossed the well remembered Inyagui River, though on a high bridge these days, rather than the low and far more exciting one, subject to flooding during the rainy season in days gone by. We were looking for a road that would take us through Mangwendi tribal lands to Bernard Mizeki College, not far from Marondera. Bernard Mizeki College is an Anglican School built on what was once St Bernard's Mission Station, where we were first resident in Southern Rhodesia.
The Marondera district is lovely, much of it more than five thousand feet above sea level and madu up of brachystegia woodland or savannah, dotted with granite kopjes and dwalas. The old road that I fondly remembered was of dirt and skirted a long and massive dwala, (massive, smooth, exfoliating, solid granite mountains, this particular one nicknamed in our family "The Slug"). There is now a tarmac road across from the Mtoko Road, far less interesting and bone-shattering, but a good deal more speedy and with hardly any traffic at all. It was good to be once more right in the heart of traditional, rural Zimbabwe, with so many the family kraals of rondavels "spearing the skyline", and the neat, colour-washed schools appearing romantic and idyllic, though in fact life in these parts is very far from pastoral bliss. Most villages have no electricity or running water and are miles away from rural clinics of any description. River water is usually death-dealing bilharzia ridden, and what food can be grown is entirely dependent upon fickle rainfall.
(to be continued....)
HERO OR SAINT
The hero is in many ways still the model we look up to in contemporary society....We all feel it's our job in our generation to make the story come out right, which means stories are told with heroes at the centre of them.... for if the hero failed, all would be lost. By contrast, a saint can fail in a way that the hero can't, because the failure of a saint reveals the forgiveness and the new possibilities made in God, and the saint is just a small character in a story that's always fundamentally about God. So the saint's story is a very different story from the hero's story, and I think that distinction between saint and hero can portray the difference between philosophical ethics and theological ethics." Samuel Wells
RISK TAKING
You must lose a fly to catch a trout. George Herbert
RISK TAKING
The healthy being craves an occasional wildness, a jolt from normality, a sharpening of the edge of appetite, his own little festival of the Saturnalia, a brief excursion from his way of life. Robert MacIver
RISK TAKING
I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean. G.K. Chesterton
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthdays
Edith Robins 18th Jan
Beverley Walsh 18th Jan
Val Downie 19th Jan
Linda Prosser 21st Jan
Elvie McInnes 22nd Jan
Wedding Anniversaries
Heather & Joe Pearson 18th Jan
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
As usual the parish AGM takes place on Ash Wednesday which this year is on the 9th of March. Later than usual it gives us some time to relax, but please note that we will need all reports by the February 20th if they are to be included in the booklet of reports. Nomination forms for Wardens, Councillors, Synod Representatives and Parochial Nominators will be available in a few weeks time.
LENT STUDY GROUPS
It is not too early to start thinking positively about what we plan to take up in order to help make the Forty Days of Lent an enriching and worthwhile experience for us. Lenten Study Groups are a part of this. There is a list for the names of those who would like to sign up for one such on the table in the Narthex.
We are offering a single course this year but at two different times. The Revd Gail Bryce will be leading one on Mondays at 1.30pm. (Starting on th 14th March) Canon Andrew will be leading one on Tuesdays at 7.30pm, preceded by a Eucharist at 7.00pm. (Starting on the 15th March) So if you miss one you can always attend the other.
ORTHODOX BAPTISM OF JESUS
The Orthodox celebration of the "Baptism of Jesus" takes place this year on Wednesday 19th of January at 8.00am. This is a big day for our Macedonian parishioners, but others are welcome and encouraged to attend too. The Icons in the Church are auctioned off, temporarily, at the end of the service and there is a procession out to the fountain where the waters are blessed and a cross thrown in for the youngsters to compete for.
PARISH COUNCIL
There is a Parish Council Meeting on Wednesday at 7.30. Another sign of normal parish life resuming, even before the end of January, is that Heather Camm will be back in the Office from Tuesday. Deo gratias.
DATES FOR THE DIARY
Jan 18th Baptism Preparation
Jan 19th Parish Council
Feb 12th Women's Breakfast "Valentine's Day"
Feb 17th Evening Guild Meeting 1.30pm
Feb 20th Deadline for next "Outreach"
Feb 22nd Bishop in Council
Mar 9th Annual General Meeting (Ash Wednesday)
Mar 10th Evening Guild Fashion Parade 1.30pm
Mar 13th Lauren Artress to preach (Labyrinth doyenne)
Mar 16th Parish Council at Dookie
May 22nd Patronal Festival
Jun 3 & 4 Synod
July 17th Bishop's Visit
Oct 23rd Confirmation
READINGS for 23rd January
Isaiah 9:1-4, 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
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. The list for names of those to be prayed for is kept in the top drawer of the little plastic box of drawers on the narthex table.
Nicole Ackland, Alan Akers, Norma Anderson, Jeffrey Andrewartha, Deb Bagley, Jan & Neville Black, Ian Carmen, John Green, Kath Grills, Frank Harder, Maximus Hendrych, Margaret Kidman, Hilder Lidgard, Albert Oxenbury, Isabelle Richards, Suzanne Singh, Marion Smith, Peter Swindells, Patricia Sparkes, Xavier Vale, David, Dawn, Robbie, James, Lynn, David & Judith, Stewart, Charles.
Rest in Peace
Raymond, Eldridge, Rebecca Arthur, Patricia O'Day.
Anniversary of death
Keith Dean, Colin Ferguson 16th, Ernest Guyatt, Ilias Petcopoulos 17th, Valerie Ford, Judith Climas 18th, Madge Grutzner, Niko Rendevski, Leona Hopkins 19th, Maria Balaburov, Grace Bourke 20th, Gerald Rogers, Ron Hall, Arthur Balaburov 21st.
Duties for 16th January 2011
Readers 8.30 Carole Henderson, Gwyn Cowland
Readers 10.30 Andrea Fisher, Joan McCann
Servers 8.30 Beth and Michelle
Servers 10.30 Frank, Greg, Lyn
Intercessors Norm Weaver, Mary Pearson
Euc. Assts 8.30 Heather Fitzgerald, John Griffin
Euc. Assts 10.30 Jenny Pleming
Welcoming 8.30 Gwen Betson
Welcomers 10.30 Charlotte Brewer, Gloria Wayman
Sidespeople 8.30 Gwyn & Merv Cowland
Sidespeople 10.30 Lesley Kenna, John Pleming
Tea 8.30 Pat Griffin
Mowing 15th Jan Merv Cowland, Trevor Batey
Duties for 23rd January 2011
Readers 8.30 Heather Fitzgerald, Liz Gyles
Readers 10.30 Nancy Noonan, Linda Prosser
Servers 8.30 Michelle, Beth
Servers 10.30 Jenny, Venita, Valerie
Intercessors Carole Henderson, Celebrant
Euc. Assts 8.30 Carole Henderson, Bev Condon
Euc. Assts 10.30 Christine Evans, J Pleming
Welcoming 8.30 Shirley Dean, Bev Reither
Welcomers 10.30 Jenny Moran, Nola Brewer
Sidespeople 8.30 Joe Pearson, Norm Mitchelmore
Sidespeople 10.30 Charlotte Brewer
Tea 8.30 Gwyn Cowland
Mowing 22nd Not this week
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 17th January Antony of Egypt
Rector's day off,
Rev. Helen Malcolm away till 21 Feb
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Tuesday 18th January
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
11,00am Eucharist - Shepparton Aged Care
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
7.30pm Baptism Preparation - Library
Wednesday 19th January
7.45am Mattins only - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine's
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
4.00pm Eucharist - Banksia
7.30pm Parish Council - Roz's Room
Thursday 20th January
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.30am Eucharists - Hakia and Acacia
11.00am Eucharist - Harmony
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Choir Practice
Friday 21st January Agnes
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
3.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Saturday 22nd January Vincent
Associate Priest's Day off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
Sunday 23rd January
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine's
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine's
8.45am Eucharist - Dookie
5.30pm Evening Prayer