SECOND SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
26th June 2011
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
WASTE NOT WANT NOT
A road train heading west to the Channel country struck and killed a wild boar. The carcass was in pretty good nick so the driver decided to offer it to the publican at Cungamilla. "Yeah, I'll give you 20 bucks for it," said the publican, "we're almost out of meat." A commercial traveller was stopping at the pub,. At dinner the publican offered him the choice of roast pork, grilled pork chops or ham on the bone. "Fresh killed, local wild boar," said the publican proudly. The traveller chose the roast and complimented the publican on the pork. "Glad you liked it," said the publican. "You can have chops, or bacon, or ham, or brawn for breakfast. We don't waste anything out here." "Sounds good," said the traveller, "could I have a drink of water?" "Yes, mate, but we've only got bore water." "Good grief," exclaimed the traveller, "you're right - you don't waste anything, do you?"
THIS, THAT AND THE OTHER (2)
Andrew Neaum
It is a dark, wet, windy Tuesday morning as I begin this diary column. I love bitter, blustery, wintry gloom. The oasis of warmth and light that is my study is accentuated and emphasised by what it keeps at bay. Outside are the cold, wet, leafless trees, "bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang....". But inside all is lightness and warmth as a Boccherini quintet plays delicately and melodically from my computer's fine speakers, building up to a frenzy of glorious melody before returning to a quiet and simple delicacy to end "as it was in the beginning". I love Boccherini, his music is ideal for dark and gloomy early mornings, there is something incurably optimistic about it.
Before settling with a cup of coffee to write, I ventured outside into the pitch dark and blustery wet to to have a look at the rain gauge. Nine millimetres so far, a life saver, the garden was beginning to look pinched.
The daily round and common task
Because I go off this morning to the Priest's Retreat in Harrietville I had to give away most of Monday, my day off, yesterday. I dealt first with some of the regular weekly tasks that I usually postpone until Tuesday. The preliminary work for this pew sheet, for example, putting in all the liturgical stuff and making sure that this week, unlike last, the psalm sung by the choir will be the same as the one in the pew sheet! The cartoons have to be selected and scanned and a joke searched out and chosen. Once this is accomplished I email my efforts to the parish office so that Heather, when she arrives on Wednesday, can add the rosters, timetables and notices as the week rolls on.
After this I selected and printed the music for Sunday. This is a time consuming but enjoyable task. I trolled through some of my many hymn books, playing promising looking melodies on my recorder. I discovered a new hymn with fairly ordinary words but a catchy tune for the 10.30 Eucharist, and so in my high-handed fashion fiddled with some of the words to make them more suitable for the baptisms this Sunday. I then scanned the music into the computer and on to the choir sheet and saved it as a PDF file to email to the two Christines.
It was then the turn of the service sheets and intercessions. They too were sorted out and are now, on this Tuesday morning, ready for use once Sunday's notices and the lists of the sick and anniversaries of death are updated and added later in the week.
My last such chore was the most time-consuming of all. I labouriously put the 10.30am service into Power-Point mode to enable it to be projected on to the screen. This is a skill that I am slowly mastering, and will then, hopefully, pass on to Heather each week.
Ringing bulls at Undera
In mid morning I gathered together thurible, incense and holy water, and headed out to a farm near Undera. I had arranged to bless a little cottage that is being refurbished on the property and in which there was felt to be evil vibes. It is an old cottage in a lovely setting and I wouldn't mind living there myself. I did the blessing assisted by the farmer's wife and then we went over to the cattle yard and watched her husband and two other fellows put a ring into the nose of a young adult bull. This was fascinating, the beast clamped in a tight, strait-jacket of a stall while the job was done, and without too much bellowing. There were about sixty five fine looking beasts, all with new rings in their noses. Their destin-ation is Indonesia, for breeding not butchering and so they are not under a ban. I wonder what animal rights activists would make of the nose ringing though. The bull I watched seemed not overly distressed by the deed, like having a tooth out without anaesthetic.
The farmer runs a fascinating business flying live beasts over to various countries in Asia, for breeding purposes or to form dairy herds. I gather that traditionally the Chinese have not been great consumers of dairy products, but that their huge and burgeoning middle class is beginning to change in this regard, hence the need to develop a dairy industry. The bulls I observed are apparently selected from here there and everywhere in Australia, brought to Undera and then flown out, three to a crate and worth an estimated $10,000 each by the time they get there.
Italian meat balls
In the afternoon I did manage a little bit of time off to make some Italian meat balls from veal and pork mince. I had bought the mince in case I needed it to feed Elizabeth, Nathan and the girls who were over for the weekend because I had asked Elizabeth to play the piano at the 10.30 service, to give Audrey a break. However we ate other things and so on Monday, as if back in kinder, I happily spiced up, augmented and rolled out as if they were plasticine, lots of little balls and then cooked them in a rich vegetable and tomato mix. I tucked in to a great pile of them on noodles for dinner and they were delicious, though the vegie "sauce" was possibly a bit too worthy, full of beans and lentils as well as fresh vegetables.
I ended the day by going over to the hall to sample and judge the cooking skills of the Youth Group. Three teams produced three courses for a collection of judges to taste, weigh up and consider. Some of their efforts were excellent, others rather less so, but an enjoyable exercise. Mary Pearson does a wonderful job with the youngsters, as too does her back up team, which last Monday comprised Bev Condon and Dorothy Cook.
Iridescent bubbles of happiness
With Diana away, when I awake in the night I have reverted to listening to the BBC to take my mind off my own preoccupations and so encourage the return of sleep. On Tuesday morning I listened to an account of a woman sent with her sister, as little girls, to Australia for the duration of the war. Her story about the wrenching apart of a loving family for five long years was heart-breaking, the wretched lachrymae rerum, the tearfulness of things. My Brisbane brother rang up that night and we had a good chat about this and that, some of it to do with the lachrymae rerum.
When we are on our own the fun and cheerfulness of things is too easily swamped by their opposites. Optimism and humour spark best in the banter and repartee of good company. The best of friends or spouses burst the grim globules of gloom and sadness, effervescing the shrapnel into the iridescent bubbles of laughter and happiness.
Much ado about noting
I have been reading a tome so huge I wonder if I will ever find the time to finish it, but it is very, very good. It is called "A Secular Age" and is by Charles Taylor, a hugely erudite and impressive scholar. In it I came across this quotation from Bede Griffiths' autobiography, a book I read years ago but have largely forgotten. Taylor uses the piece as an example of the experiences we all of us have, believers and non believers, of fullness, joy and fulfilment.....
One day during my last term at school I walked out alone in the evening and heard the birds singing in that full chorus of song, which can only be heard at that time of the year at dawn or at sunset. I remember now the shock of surprise with which the sound broke on my ears. It seemed to me that I had never heard the birds singing before and I wondered whether they sang like this all year round and I had never noticed it. As I walked I came upon some hawthorn trees in full bloom and again I thought that I had never seen such a sight or experienced such sweetness before. If I had been brought suddenly among the trees of the Garden of Paradise and heard a choir of angels singing I could not have been more surprised. I came then to where the sun was setting over the playing fields. A lark rose suddenly from the ground beside the tree where I was standing and poured out its song above my head, and then sank still singing to rest. Everything then grew still as the sunset faded and the veil of dusk began to cover the earth. I remember now the feeling of awe which came over me. I felt inclined to kneel on the ground, as though I had been standing in the presence of an angel; and I hardly dared to look on the face of the sky, because it seemed as though it was but a veil before the face of God.
Our retreat conductor (for I am now at Harrietville) is the sort that I relish, widely acquainted with, and thoroughly at home in the great heritage of literature, music and art that informs, enriches and illuminates our lives, faith and civilization. She commented in her first address that in Elizabethan English the word "nothing" was apparently pronounced as "noting" and so the phrase "Much ado about "nothing" could just as well be "Much ado about noting" which is a cue to what spiritual awareness is all about. Namely noticing what merely is, for what in reality and in more than fact, it really is, as happened with Bede Griffith in the passage quoted above.
My own personal and doubtless far too simplistic theory of art is that, if it is authentic, it draws aside or twitches for us the veil between the ordinary and the extraordinary, the human and the divine, in order to reveal the "otherness" of everything, the "otherness" in everything, reality as suffused with divinity. Hence the use of art, music and literature in my devotional life.
The monastery cat
She delighted me too by quoting a prayer of George Appleton's which I used a fair bit once upon a time but had forgotten. Searching for the prayer in one of the many files on my computer I came across another by Appleton that is lovely and might well be useful at funerals:
O Christ, the little girl on her deathbed, the young man on his way to his grave, and Lazarus three days in the tomb, could all hear your voice. May each soul as it passes through death, hear your friendly voice, see the look of love in your eyes and the smile of welcome in your face, and be led by you to the Father of all souls. Amen.
She told us an amusing story about a monastery that was given a cat upon which the monks doted, but which was a little wayward and so disturbed the daily mass by jumping up where it shouldn't and meowing inappropriately. They resolved the problem by tying it up before mass each day and so this became a little ritual necessary before mass was said for fifteen long years. Then the cat eventually died. Consternation! They found thereafter that they were unable to say mass at all, so necessary and essential to the rituals of the mass had become the tying up of the cat beforehand! The story illustrated the necessity of being able to let go of what is unnecessary or redundant in the spiritual life.
I found the Appleton prayer I was actually looking for in a scheme of prayers I once put together and published in this pew sheet during several Lents:
O Christ, my Lord, again and again I have said with Mary Magdalene,"They have taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him." I have been desolate and alone. And thou hast found me again, and I know that what has died is not thou, my Lord, but only my idea of thee, the image which I have made to preserve what I have found, and to be my security. I shall make another image, O Lord, better than the last. That too must go, and all successive images, until I come to the blessed vision of thyself, O Christ, my Lord.
The retreat is now over, and I am home. Don't for a minute imagine that the experience was all spiritual delight. The food was largely excellent, not least the full, cooked breakfasts and I slept long and well. It rained coldly and gently for pretty well the whole time we were there, but I did manage one good and longish walk, greeting sodden kangaroos in a cheerful fashion as well as currawongs and kookaburras.
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthdays:
Maureen Olphert 1st July
Michelle Woodyard 2nd July
WELCOME
Welcome to Emilia Joy Grieve, Olivia Willow den Hartog and Isobel Rose Black-Griffin and their families. All here for the sacrament of baptism.
PARISH FAIR & GARDEN PARTY
Planning has commenced for this event to be held on Saturday, 22nd October. Prizes for the major raffle have been finalised and will be listed in the next issue of OUTREACH. The Jewellery Cleaning Stall will operate again. Ladies could now start inspecting their rings and brooches and bracelets and necklaces! Charges will be very reasonable: one item for $4; 2 items for $7; 3 items for$10. All proceeds to Church funds. The next meeting of the Planning Group is at 4.00pm on Thursday 11th August in Roz's Room. Please come with your new ideas and/or your interest in helping to make this annual event a great success.
PARISH BROCHURE PHOTOS
If anyone has a really good photo of a Parish Group, for example the The Fellowship Group, the Youth Group etc, would you please email it to the Parish Office computer staugustinesshep@bigpond.com.au, if you are willing to have it published. Thank You. Heather Fitzgerald
NOTE WELL
The beauty of our worship at 8.30 is enhanced by our team of servers. We are very short of them and could well do with some volunteers!
SUNDAYS @ FIVE
On Sunday, the 3rd July at 5pm in the Narthex there will be worship with a difference and the topic this week will be "respecting people, and helping those who are different". Mary Pearson
DATES FOR THE DIARY
July 3rd Sunday @ 5/Alternative Worship service
July 12th Social Responsibilities Meeting 12.00 noon
July 12th "Moving On" Grief Support Group
July 17th Bishop's Visit
July 19th Friendship Group 2.00pm
July 21st Evening Guild 1.30pm
July 30th Garden Working Bee
July 31st Combined Parish Worship etc. Rushworth
Aug 11th Parish Fair & Garden Party Meeting
Aug 20th Wedding
Aug 27th Garden Working Bee
Sept 3rd Women's Breakfast
Sept 10th Harvey Norman Sausage Sizzle (Fete)
Sept 17th Men's Breakfast
Sept 22nd Parish Fair & Garden Party Meeting
Sept 24th Wedding
Sept 24th Garden Working Bee
Oct 1st Wedding 2pm
Oct 8th Wedding 2pm
Oct 8th Wedding 3.30pm
Oct 22nd Parish Fair & Garden Party
Oct 23rd Confirmation
Oct 29th Wedding
Oct 29th Garden Working Bee
Dec 3rd Women's Breakfast
Dec 10th Men's Breakfast
Dec 10th Wedding
READINGS NEXT WEEK
Genesis 24:34-67, Romans 7:14-25
Duties for 26th June 2011
Readers 8.30 John Wellman, Jeanette Smith
Readers 10.30 Joan McCann, Nancy Noonan
Servers 8.30 Eucharistic Assistants
Servers 10.30 Jenny, Joe & Zeb
Intercessors Heather Fitzgerald, Celebrant
Euc. Assts 8.30 Bev Condon, John Griffin
Euc. Assts 10.30 Greg Pestell, Jenny Pleming
Welcoming 8.30 Shirley Dean, Bev Reither
Welcomers 10.30 Jenny Moran, Frank Steen
Sidespeople 8.30 Trevor Batey, Joy Campbell
Sidespeople 10.30 John Pleming
Welcome Table Dorothy Cook
Altar Linen for June Gwen Betson
Tea 8.30 Bev Reither
Mowing none this week
Duties for 3rd July 2011
Readers 8.30 Norm Weaver, Carole Henderson
Readers 10.30 Christine Jones, Christine Evans
Servers 8.30 Eucharistic Assistants
Servers 10.30 Greg Pestell
Intercessors Celebrant, Greg Pestell
Euc. Assts 8.30 Bev Condon, Ian Bryce
Euc. Assts 10.30 Greg Pestell, Jenny Pleming
Welcomers 8.30 Judy Lloyd, Pat Griffin
Welcomers 10.30 Charlotte Brewer, Jenny Moran
Sidespeople 8.30 Joe Pearson, Norm Mitchelmore
Sidespeople 10.30 John Pleming, Jenny Moran
Tea 8.30 Bev Reither
Mowing 2nd July Merv Cowland, Beryl Bonfitto
Altar Linen for July Ella Egan
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.
Alan Akers, Deb Bagley, Liam Bognar, Marlene Bovaird, Kath Grills, Frank Harder, Katherine Holt, John & Kate Horder, Ross Judd, Lyn Morcom, Margaret Kidman, Albert Oxenbury, Isabelle Richards, Dawn Scott,Sandra Simonis, Peter Swindells, Suzanne Singh, Beryl Sutton, Patricia Sparkes, Fay Warren, John Young, David, Harry, Peter, Krystina.
Rest in Peace: Diedre Johnston
Anniversary of death: Charlie Causon, Thomas Dickie, Sylvia Allen, Walter Young, Johannes Alberse, Catherine Withers 26th, Robert Lennox 27th, Vasiliki Janeff, Jean Hastie, Terrence Rogers 28th, Mervyn Ford 29th, Michelle Ward, Ethel Ward, Elizabeth Garner, Ray Dreher 30th, John Osborne, Heather Carlyon, Aileen Rowe 1st.
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 27th June Cyril of Alexandria
Rector’s Day off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Tuesday 28th June Irenaeus
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
3.00pm Chapter & Bishop in Council - Wangaratta
10.00am Playgroup
11.00am Eucharist - Shepparton Aged Care
4.15pm Confirmation Class
Wednesday 29th June St Peter & St Paul
7.45am Mattins only - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine's
6.00pm EfM - Roz's Room
Thursday 30th June
7.45am Mattins only - Lady Chapel
10.15am Eucharist- Grutzner
11.00am Eucharist - Harmony
5.30pm Choir Practice - Rectory
Friday 1st July Torres Strait Island Missionaries
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
11.00am Eucharist- Mercy Centre
Saturday 2nd July
Associate Priest's Day off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist (trad rite) - Lady Chapel
11.00am Grave Blessing - Shepparton Cemetery
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Sunday 3rd July Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine's
10.30am Eucharist - St Augustine's
8.45am Eucharist - St Luke's Dookie
9.00am Eucharist - St. Pauls Rushworth
11.00am Eucharist - Church Christ Murchison