TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
30th October 2011
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
CONCISE DIAGNOSIS
A young woman went to her doctor complaining of distressing pain. “Where are you hurting?” asked the doctor.”You have to help me, I hurt all over”, said the woman. “What do you mean, all over?” asked the doctor, “be a little more specific.” The woman touched her right knee with her index finger and yelled, “Ow, that hurts.” Then she touched her left cheek and again yelled, “Ouch! That hurts, too.” Then she touched her right earlobe, “Ow, even THAT hurts”, she cried. The doctor checked her thoughtfully for a moment and then unusually for a doctor these days gave an concise, definite and exact diagnosis, “You have a broken finger.”
OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BISHOPS
The Archbishop of York once said, “My ignorance of science is such that if anyone mentioned copper nitrate, I should think he was talking about policemen’s overtime!”
THIS, THAT
AND THE OTHER (20)
Andrew Neaum
I prepared for one of the most hectic of the year’s weekends by departing for a peaceful diocesan Clergy Conference in beautiful hills east of Melbourne. I returned last Friday afternoon.
Hectic
There was a funeral interview that evening as well as the funeral itself to prepare for and then conduct on Parish Fair Saturday. There was also the Fair to play my full part in as well as a sermon to compose (or select and edit from my archive) for 8.30am on Sunday morning. Then there was Sunday’s Confirmation liturgy and a power point version of it to knock together. There were pew sheets, service sheets and funeral sheets to finalise, print and fold.
However, things that have to be done are done. It is deadlines that keep the world functioning. Among life’s greatest pleasures are deadlines met and challenges faced. It was an exhilarating weekend. All went off extremely well.
The great Fair and Garden Party
The Fair was a triumph. At its end both Diana and I were too weary to sleep, but to be a merry insomniac is infinitely preferable to being a miserable one. To share, laugh and gossip one’s insomnia into guffawed irrelevance renders insomnia a pleasure not a curse. We joked, laughed and tittered ourselves dilly until well beyond midnight.
To be an authentic St Augustinian parishioner is to all but stew and drown in our annual Parish Fair. Those who drop out, fall out, pull out, miss out almightily.
For the week leading up to the great day the place murmurs, buzzes and hums with purpose, single-minded good will, effort, strain, perspiration and jollity. It is good simply to be a part of it all. (So why was I away at a conference then?)
Pat Gibson
In the Fair our parish unites in a stupendous, common effort. One of the reasons for this is that Pat Gibson, our leader, director, and inspiration is guided not by mere goodwill, duty or even faith, rather she has a coherent and compelling philo-sophy to guide and direct her. She, more than any of us, sees that St Augustine’s, in its Parish Fair, is the City on a Hill and Light to the World that it is called to be in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
Her primary motive, therefore, is to pull in to shine out, anyone and everyone who in anyway belongs to us. Success lies not so much in money being raised as in all sorts of people’s sense of belonging to us being reinforced and emphasised. The family becomes extended family. Community and Church meld.
The sense of purpose and joy is palpable. I love it. We all should love it. If we don’t it is time we reread our Gospels. Grizzles and moans approach blasphemy.
My gratitude to Pat Gibson is as boundless as my admiration of her meticulous attention to detail and irrepressible good humour. She is a star at the centre of a galaxy of parishioner stars. Well done everyone.
How did we do?
Just because our purpose transcends mere money- raising, we raise a great deal. Once more we appear to have surpassed the previous year. Our takings at the time of writing, including all the raffles, come to well over $24,000. Expenses are likely to be about $1,800. This is wonderful.
Betty Bush’s appeal for each family to support the Cake Stall was itself well supported and hugely successful. That fact that we sold out of BBQ “ingredients”, as well as Gourmet Luncheon salads and quiches, strawberries and cream and “exotic” desserts, and that the Ham on the Bone looked very bare, indicates a record attendance.
The Gem Club and “Arms” displayers were delighted with attendances. The most enjoyable and varied free concert was attended by approximately 90 people.
It was altogether a great day. The final meeting of the Parish Fair and Garden Party Planning Group is on Thursday 10th November at 4.00pm in the Narthex. Do come along. We need and appreciate suggestions for the future and we must discuss what went right and what went wrong.
A new word
I learned a new word this week. One I am unlikely to forget: nosism. It means the use of “we” in referring to yourself instead of “I”. It comes from the Latin word “nos” which means “we”. It would also indicate that the pronunciation of the word is more likely to be “noss-ism” than “nose-ism”
A common example is the “royal we” (Pluralis majestatis), which is a nosism used by a person of high office, such as a monarch, earl or pope. It is also used in certain formal contexts by bishops and university rectors.
Apparently the expression was first used in England in 1169 when the King Henry II, hard pressed by his barons over the investiture controversy, assumed the ancient biblical principal of the “divine right of kings,” namely that the monarch acts conjointly with the deity. Hence, he used “we” meaning “God and I...”.
There are also editorial nosisms and authorial nosisms, such as: “by adding four to six we obtain ten”. In this sense it is cosily inclusive of the reader with either the author or editor.
If, like me, you spend any time at all in nursing homes, you are almost certain to have come across what is known as the “patronising nosism”. Here the word “we” is used not instead of “I”, but instead of “you”. For example: “how are we feeling today” or “aren’t we looking grumpy?”
Witty Mark Twain once said, “Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial ‘we’.”
Biblical and Islamic nosisms
The reason I stumbled upon the word was because in our weekly Islam Study Group at the Rectory we noticed that in the Quran, Allah sometimes uses the first person plural for his singular self and we wondered why.
A little research shows this usage to be a feature of literary style in Arabic. A person may refer to himself by the pronoun nahnu (“we”) for respect or glorification. He may also use the word ana (“I”), or the third person huwa (“he”). All three styles are used in the Quran.
In discussing this in our group Helen Malcolm reminded us that in the Book Genesis God refers to himself similarly in the first person plural: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness....”
There is much scholarly debate about this. Can it be a relic of a former belief in many Gods? Is it simply yet another example of the plural of “majesty” or “excellence”? Might it perhaps be a very early hint of a Trinitarian God? Or does it bear reference to angels, archangels and all the heavenly hosts?
Scholarly consensus, insofar as I can determine it in a busy week, seems to settle on it being a combination of the plural of majesty, though with likely echoes or hints of the heavenly hosts.
Such speculations are fascinating to the likes of me. They might well get right up the nose of others, proving to be “nosisms” of a rather more literal, physical and brutal sort.
Foot gear
Many years ago I remember shaking hands with a formidable woman after church who instead of saying “Good morning,” or, “That was a brilliant sermon, Andrew”, said: “Your shoes are dirty!” A useful piece of information this. A reminder that when people come up to Communion, all they see of the priest are shoes, and that therefore some sort of an effort needs to be made by those who administer communion to ensure that their shoes don’t distract people either by their dirtiness or by their peculiarity. On those hot days in summer when I wear sandals, I suppose that I should make sure that my toe nails are well manicured. With the attention to detail that Anglo Catholics pride themselves on, the toe-nails could be painted in the liturgical colour of the day.
Luxuriating toes
In biblical times priests performed their duties in the temple barefoot. I would love that. I love to get out of my shoes. Like Nelson Mandela freed from gaol, my toes luxuriate in liberation from the close confinement of shoes, which, because they are such dirty things, used always to be discarded before entering any holy place.
Moses at the burning bush was told to remove his, even out there in the desert, because God was present and the place holy. Muslims today still remove their shoes before entering a Mosque. Before entering even an ordinary house in biblical times you removed your foot-gear and in many households here in Australia this is becoming more common.
The disciples of Jesus were instructed to shake off the dust from their feet as they left any place which refused to listen to them. This is what all strict Jews used to do when they arrived back in Palestine after travelling abroad. At the border they would take off their sandals and give them a good shake to get rid of all the foreign dirt and filth clinging to them. They did so as to avoid contaminating the holy land of Israel.
A clever reversal
Some time ago I came across a clever reversal of Jesus’ famous saying about dust and feet: the whole point of ‘shaking the dust off your feet’ is that, actually, you can’t. The dust on our shoes has to be rubbed and polished off. It can’t be shaken off, more’s the pity.
So too it is with the dust of doubt and disbelief, of materialism and self-centredness, the dust of cynicism and despair, of worry and fret, the dust of self-doubt and indecision, of fear and aimlessness. All of which settle upon us in our daily tread out and about in the world as disciples, away from the centre of the Kingdom of God.
As we walk and stamp our way about the world, we raise just such a dust. It settles on and blurs for us the things that really matter: the joy of simplicity’s beauty, of sweet self-forgetfulness, of life’s many, simple little acts of love. We can’t see any shine at all because of all the dreary dust accumulated, as it were, upon our shoes which cannot simply be shaken off, but needs wiping, polishing, shining, buffing off.
Blue but beautiful feet
This is one of the many reasons for remaining active members of the family of God. In the life and worship of God’s family we wipe, polish, shine, buff off the dust of materialism, busyness and fret with and among good, lovely and openly Christian folk, before our beloved Holy One.
It might also be a good thing to emulate our Islamic brothers and sisters and symbolically leave our shoes at the church door.
The first baptism I ever performed was of a little baby who, on a frosty but sunny winter’s day in Zimbabwe, screamed from the service’s beginning to end. This, it turned out, was not in horror of me or of baptism, but because its Dad, though instructed to put its booties on under the christening robe, had forgotten to do so. Its feet, although beautiful, were blue, poor little thing!
I trust that over thirty years later the baptism has borne its fruit. That those little feet, now pink rather than blue, much larger and possibly callused and corned, yet meet with Isaiah’s approval, because “how beautiful, upon the mountains are the feet of those who bring good tidings, who publish peace; who bring good tidings of good, that publish salvation; that say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthdays:
Anita Saville 5th Nov
SHEPPARTON CHARITY CARD & GIFT SHOP
Scot’s Church Hall, Cnr. Fryers & Corio St.
Opening Hours:-
Nov & Dec: 9.30am - 4.30pm Mon - Fri
9.30am - 12 noon on Saturdays
ALL SOULS DAY
All Soul’s takes place on Wednesday the 2nd of November. There will be Requiems for our departed at 8.00am and 10.00am on that day. There’s a list for the names of those you would like remembered on the Narthex table.
CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM STUDY
The fifth session takes place in the Rectory this Tuesday at 7.30pm.
PARISH FAIR and GARDEN PARTY
An initial report on how we went can be read in the Rector’s diary column “This, That and the Other” below.
PARISH QUIET DAY
Don’t forget that on Saturday the 10th December, all parishioners are invited to a Quiet Day. Mark the date in your diaries! Quiet Days are special days, all too rare. Do not miss this one.
POST MORTEM
The final meeting of the Parish Fair and Garden Party Planning Group will be held on Thursday 10th November at 4.00pm. Please come We would appreciate your suggestions for the future: “what went right” and “what went wrong” last Saturday.
EDUCATION FOR MINISTRY Recruitment.
Our EfM group is going from strength to strength. This year we have been at capacity and are excited at the prospect of being able to run two groups next year, possibly one based in Murchison. You need no formal theological training, just an interest in reflecting on what is happening in your life and where this is touched by the story of God’s people. It is NOT training for ordination, it is NOT asking you to DO more and it is SO MUCH MORE than Bible study (just ask any of the current EfM group)! It is facilitating, in a supportive, fun environment, your ability to know God better as He acts in your life and through the ministry that you are already doing. For more information, ask Helen hmalcolm@bigpond.com, Victoria heeno@bigpond.com Heather in the office or any of the current group.
CAROL SERVICE
We are beginning to practice for our Carol Service which is likely to be on Thursday the 15th of December, though the date has not yet been finalised. Anyone who would like to join us for this most enjoyable and worthwhile sing, come along on Thursdays at 6.00pm to practise.
EfM MISSION STALL
Sunday 20th November at the Craft Market in the Queen’s Gardens
The EfM group is to run a stall to raise money to support our parish’s mission giving through ABM for water and education projects in the Philippines. We will be selling handmade craft items such as bookmarks, beads, notelets, Christmas decorations etc. and there will be a raffle. We would encourage parishioners to assist us by supplying new/as new craft items of paper/ wool/cloth/wood/pottery eg baby clothes, soft toys etc. and also by patronising the stall on the day. Watch the pewsheet for details of the raffle prizes and ticket prices. For more information contact Helen or Heather in the office.
FAIR RAFFLE RESULTS
Major Raffle:
1st Lyn Morcom (trip for four to the Cold Coast)
2nd Nadine Goonan (Stainless Steel Roaster)
3rd Joy Ross-Edwards (Wooden articles)
4th Velo (Purdey’s $100 Voucher)
5th G Mazaris IGA ($100 Voucher)
6th Paige Hatton (Dinner at Sebastian’s)
Cheese Bar Raffle:
1st Annette
2nd Pam Allen
3rd E. Hosie
4th E. Blake
Cake Stall Raffle:
Elvie McInnes
Craft Stall Raffle:
1st Hyree Ahmen
2nd Eileen Dolan
3rd G Dimit
Bev’s Dolls Raffle:
1st M Shillington
2nd Beryl Goodfellow
Glass & China Stall Raffle:
Sarah Pollard
Jams & Preserves Stall:
Joy Martin
READINGS NEXT WEEK
Joshua 24:1-3, 14-25, Thessalonians 4:9-18
FOR THE DIARY
Oct 30th Combined Eucharist & Luncheon - Murchison
Nov 8th “Moving On” Grief Support Dinner Meeting
Nov 12th Wedding 2pm
Nov 19th Wedding 1pm
Nov 19th Wedding 3pm
Nov 26th Wedding 2pm
Dec 3rd Women’s Breakfast
Dec 10th Parish Quiet Day
Dec 10th Men’s Breakfast
Dec 10th Wedding
Dec 15th Carol Service
Dec 16th Concert: Sempre Cantare
Oct 20th 2012 Parish Fair and Garden Party
Duties for 30th October 2011
Readers 8.30 Bev Condon, Norm Mitchelmore
Readers 10.30 Andrea Fisher, Joan McCann
Servers 8.30 Beth Brewer, Michelle Woodyard
Servers 10.30 Joan Jenny, Greg
Intercessors Celebrant, Mary Pearson
Euc. Assts 8.30 Carole Henderson, Ian Bryce
Euc. Assts 10.30 Greg Pestell, Jenny Pleming
Welcomers 8.30 Pat Griffin, Dulcie Ackland
Welcomers 10.30 Nola Brewer, Charlotte Brewer
Sidespeople 8.30 Bev & Max Ralph
Sidespeople 10.30 Mitch Macheda, John Pleming
Tea 8.30 Pat/Barb
Welcoming Table Judy Lloyd
Mowing none this week
Altar Linen/Oct Gwen Betson
Duties for 6th November 2011
Readers 8.30 Victoria Heenan, John Wellman
Readers 10.30 Nancy Noonan, Charlotte Brewer
Servers 8.30 Beth Brewer, Michelle Woodyard
Servers 10.30 Rick, Sam & Braden Coates
Intercessors Pat Griffin, Andrea Fisher
Euc. Assts 8.30 John Griffin, Bev Condon
Euc. Assts 10.30 Jenny Pleming, Joe Fernandez
Welcomers 8.30 Eileen Quaife, Anita Saville
Welcomers 10.30 Jenny Moran, Frank Steen
Sidespeople 8.30 Trevor Batey, Joy Campbell
Sidespeople 10.30 Jenny Moran, Charlotte Brewer
Tea 8.30 Gwyn Cowland
Welcoming Table Beverley Walsh
Mowing Margaret & Brendan Carroll
Altar Linen/Nov 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.
Nicole Ackland, Margaret Aldous, Alan Akers, Deb Bagley, Liam Bognar, Joy & Ian Carmen, Stanley Carpenter, Ross & Helen Dainton, Anna and Heather Fitzgerald, Beryl Goodfellow, Frank Harder, Katherine Holt, John & Kate Horder, Ross Judd, Elsie Lieschke, Judy Lloyd, Bronwyn Mitchell, Olive Paez, Margaret Kidman, Albert Oxenbury, Val Rose, Ethel & George Rumble, Patricia Sparkes, Peter Swindells, Lionel Waterson, David, Peter, David & Judith, Kaye, Keith & Bonny, Suzanne, Ray & Joyce, Pat, Malcolm, Robyn.
Rest in Peace: Isobel Kendall
Anniversaries: Pamela Taylor, Ray Prosser, Maisie Heenan 30th, Lindsay Dealy 31st, Annie Galt, Evelyn Sheppard, Brenda Jonas 1st, Philip Clayton, George Petts, Thomas Damianopoulos 2nd, Marie Peoples, June Kemp 3rd, Ken Watts, Annie Hamilton 4th, Charles Goven-Smith, Elsie Steen, Robert Cole 5th.
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 31st October
(Rector’s day off)
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Tuesday 1st November All Saint’s Day
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
11.00am Shepparton Aged Care
7.30pm Islam Study - Rectory
Wednesday 2nd November
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
8.00am Eucharist/All Soul’s Day
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine’s/All Soul’s Day
6.00pm EfM - Roz’s Room
Thursday 3rd November
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.30am Eucharist - Acacia/Hakea
11.00am Eucharist - Harmony
4.00pm Eucharist - Banksia
5.30pm Choir Practice - Rectory
Friday 4th November
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Saturday 5th November
(Associate Priest’s Day off)
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Twenty First Sunday after Pentecost, 6th November
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine’s
10.30am Eucharist - St. Augustine’
12noon Baptism
8.45am Eucharist - St Luke’s
9.00am Eucharist - Rushworth
11.00am Eucharist -Murchison
5.00pm Sundays @ 5