ST FRANCISTIDE
9th October 2011
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
HOLY HEADACHES
A man went to the doctor because he suffered from violent headaches. The doctor duly examined him and then started asking him a few questions: "Did you notice if your headaches appear sometime after you had too many alcoholic drinks ?" The man replied, "Doctor, I don't touch alcohol, not even a glass of wine at family celebrations." "Well," said the doctor, "Perhaps you are smoking too much. In which case you should think of reducing your tobacco consumption." "Doctor, I promise you that I have never ever smoked in my whole life, indeed smoke makes me ill." "Really? Then perhaps you are too amorous and late nights combined with passion are the cause of your problem." "It cannot be so", the man replied, " since my dear and beloved wife died I have not so much as looked at another woman, let alone indulged in any romantic shenanigans." Perplexed the doctor scratched his head. Then he had a sudden eureka moment which enlightened his puzzled face. "I have got it," he said, "I know where your troubles come from. Your flaming halo is too tight! It is restricting the blood in your veins."
THIS, THAT
AND THE OTHER (17)
Andrew Neaum
One of the greatest of those simple moments in life that make everything worthwhile occurred when I was on holiday on King Island some years ago. On a beautiful, calm evening I was lying with two of my children, on a pebble beach, the sea gently sighed as larger waves intermittently gathered to crash more emphatically as dusk fell.
Miniature guardsmen
On the shore side of us, beneath low scrub and bushes, were little passages and burrows. As it became really dark small penguins came out of them to stand like miniature guardsmen, silent for the most part, but occasionally barking and churring too. Then, on the lip of the steep part of the pebble beach, we became aware of company. A row of penguins, fresh from the sea, their crops bulging with mangled fish, were simply standing there, leaning forward and eyeing us suspiciously.
After a while, slowly, quietly, they shuffled forward. Several of them were a mere foot from my foot and had to make a detour round us all because we were in their way. It was a beautiful, awe-inspiring experience and with what joy the returning seafarers were greeted by their mates.
Many friends
I have always loved animals, birds, reptiles and insects. I cannot walk through a paddock of cows without mooing companionably to them, or baaing my best wishes to sheep. If a blackbird whistles, I whistle back.
In my time I have had a pet penguin, on the island of Tristan da Cunha, a pet mole snake, at my bush school in Africa (we found a nest of them and used to take them to class in our pockets). I have had a pet pied crow, budgies, a dog, and at present have a bowl of over sixty comical tadpoles. They dart around in sudden spasms of energy, delicately nibble at floating lettuce leaves until there is only a fragile tracery of leaf ribs left, and they drift vertically with their mouths upward piercing the water's surface skin, to blow bubbles and kisses to our airy, other-world. A world into which they will one day leap to claim as their own.
I have kept chameleon eggs in damp soil in a little tub on my study windowsill until they hatched into exquisite, tiny, baby chameleon's and were released. I have placed their wary parents in the centre of a lawn to observe them flick out their astonishingly long and sticky tongue to transfix and then gobble grasshoppers. As a boy my school holidays were largely spent walking the African bush with binoculars bird watching. I have been to some of the world's best game parks, and seen lion, elephant, leopard, cheetah, and once, on horseback, almost bumped into a great rhinoceros.
Still one of the most thrilling experiences in life for me, is to discover a bird's nest in my garden, with a clutch of bright, neat, crisp-shelled eggs in it, returning sweet content to the word "nestled".
Paradox
Why do we love nature so? Why do we love animals, either wild or as pets? Humankind uses them and abuses them. They are made to work for us and are killed to feed us, but we also love them, are inspired and awed by them. We consider cruelty to them a most heinous crime.
There is a contradiction, a paradox to our relationships to animals. What is it all about? It has got something to do, I think, with a paradox or contradiction within ourselves.
We are all of us materialists to some degree or other. Our lives are busied, muddied, cluttered with activities to do with earning a living, with acquiring enough money and possessions to ensure our own and our family's security, well being and comfort. We cannot be otherwise, it is part of the human condition, but unless we are careful it becomes obsessive. We are so busy, busy, busy that we lose sight of greater values, or if not greater, at very least essential complementary values.
The natural world, in its uncomplicated beauty, the lilies of the field that neither toil nor spin, the birds of the air that neither sow nor reap, nor gather in to barns, remind us that there is more to life than security. That there is simplicity, beauty, innocence, and perhaps above all, there is simply being. The beauty of just being who we are.
Why do we love a daft little dog?
Why do we love a daft little dog? Or a rainbow lorikeet, or even a house sparrow? The answer is, simply for being what or who they are.
To acknowledge that beauty and respond to it, and its right simply to be, is the beginning of reverence and awe, which are also the impulse to worship.
Worship, reverence, deference, paying someone their worth, is not a characteristic of our day and age. We live in a world that debunks, deprecates and decries, that cuts down tall poppies, devalues the sublime and beautiful, cocks its leg against so much that is good and lovely and traditional.
Church-goers don't though. For we practice worship and reverence, regularly, Sunday by Sunday, we learn to bow the knee and respond to what is "other". We are all the better people for doing so.
Those who are not church-goers have to turn to nature to learn a little of what we are on about, namely, reverence, awe and worship.
It is no wonder that environmentalists and greens often appear quasi-religious, sometimes even to the point of fanaticism. They are closer to religious practice than they imagine or dare admit.
In bringing our pets to be blessed we acknowledge their worth, the important part they play in our lives, and simply our delight in their being, in that they are.
More than that, though we acknowledge that they are also a blessing to us, for they take us out of our self and point us to reverence and worship, like the lilies of the field.
Thank God for nature, for animals, for our pets, and for St Francis who reminds us of the importance of sweet simplicity and joy in what is natural, given and free.
KEW GARDENS
(in memory of Ian A. Black, died January 1971)
Distinguished scientist, to whom I greatly defer
(old man, moreover, whom I dearly love)
I walk today in Kew Gardens, in sunlight the colour of honey
which flows from the cold immaculate blue of the heavens to light these tans and golds,
these ripe corn and leather and sunset colours of the East Asian liriodendrons,
of the beeches and maples and plum-trees and the stubborn green banks of the holly hedges
- and you walk always beside me, you with your knowledge of names
and your clairvoyant gaze, in what for me is sheer panorama
seeing the net or web of connectedness. But today it is I who speak
(and you are long dead, but it is to you I say it):
"The leaves are green in summer because of chlorophyll
and the flowers are bright to lure the pollinators,
and without remainder (so you have often told me)
these marvellous things that shock the heart the head can account for;
but I want to sing an excess which is not so simply explainable,
to say that the beauty of the autumn is a redundant beauty,
that the sky had no need to be this particular shade of blue,
nor the maple to die in flames of this particular yellow,
nor the heart to respond with an ecstasy that does not beget children.
I want to say that I do not believe your science
although I believe every word of it, and intend to understand it;
that although I rate that unwavering gaze higher than almost everything
there is another sense, a hearing, to which I more deeply attend.
Thus I withstand and contradict you, I, your child,
who have inherited from you the passion which causes me to oppose you."
(D M Black)
A Prayer for Moths
When
— At the mid of moon,
At end of day —
My lamp is lit,
Grant me a boon,
I pray,
And do
So order it
— That the small creatures,
Terrified and blind;
The gold and silvern moths
Of lovely kind,
Do not whirl to my taper,
Nor, therein,
Die, painfully,
And bring my light
To sin.
My light
is innocent!
Grant
— That it may be
Harmless,
And helpful,
And remarked
Of Thee.
(James Stephens 1882 - 1950, Irish novelist and poet.)
FRIENDS AND PETS
The difference between friends and pets is that friends we allow into our company, pets we allow into our solitude. Robert Brault
PARISH FAIR & GARDEN PARTY
Flyers
You can make a great difference to the attendance at the Annual Fair if you would take a bundle, or two or three of flyers. We have all of Shepparton to cover and need to have a flyers placed in everyone's letter box.
Flyers are available in the Narthex for collection TODAY. The individual maps for collectors have been carefully pared down to small areas so as not to overburden walkers. On the boundary streets of each little map, you deliver only on the inside of the street.
Working Bees
Saturday, 15th October - from 9.00a.m. details from John Pleming - 58252700.
Friday, 21st October - beginning at 4.30 p.m
Saturday, 22nd October: 6.00a.m.-8.30a.m.
12.30pm - 1.15pm
3.20pm - to return the site to normal.
Don't leave the fair too early
Relax on the lawn and enjoy the entertainment. The free concert commences at 1.30p.m. If the weather is inclement, the concert will take place in the Church.
Raffle books
It would be greatly appreciated if you would please return your raffle books (sold or unsold) by the 15th October.
Delivery of non perishable goods
The Parish Hall will be open from Monday 17th to Friday 21st for parishioners to deliver items for sale - large and small (including jams and preserves). Trestles will be placed where goods may be put ready for sorting and pricing by stallholders.
Children's activities
There will be lots of entertainment for children. The Youth Group will conduct "Wack the Rat", "Face Painting", "Slime and Bubbles" and "Sponge Toss".The "Children's Church" leaders will be there with other interesting things to show or do. The Jumping Castle will operate from 9.00a.m. - 1.00p.m. located on the lawn south of the Church.
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthdays:
Billy Bagley 11th Oct
Malcolm Elliott 13th Oct
John Morrow 13th Oct
Simon Dunlop 15th Oct
5th SUNDAY LUNCH: 30th OCTOBER
The Combined Fifth Sunday of the Month Service at Murchison & Rushworth will be followed by lunch at Robert & Heather Smith's Home, Browns Road, Moorilim. Bookings are essential! Ring Anne 58262422 or 58262264. The cost is $20. All are welcome to a beautiful lunch & gathering
CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM STUDY
The third second session takes place in the Rectory this Tuesday at 7.30pm.
HEATHER AWAY
The Parish Secretary, Heather, is away this week. The Parish Office will be open spasmodically for that time, and the Rector, doubtless, running around like a demented weasel.
WELCOME
We welcome into our church family today by way of Baptism, Savannah Peace Mawson, we also welcome her parents Lynda and Peter and their family and friends.
SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE
The Social Responsibilities Committee held a very successful and imaginatively conceived function to mark "Seniors Week" last Wednesday. It gathered together a band of at least seventy folk,. either seniors or verging thereon, to listen to brief talks from a variety of providers of services for the elderly, to see displays of both equipment and services available as well as to be fed a great lunch and entertained. The atmosphere was excellent and the programme well thought through and realised. Well done indeed to the two prime movers and inspirers of the day, Marge Earle and Heather Pearson. They are a dynamic pair, brilliant at turning great ideas from mere words into reality. Thank you too to their willing and amiable helpers and to those who volunteered their gifts and expertise.
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!
ST LUKE'S DAY
The annual service for health workers, volunteers and everybody who cares for others in time of need, will be on Sunday 16th October at 5.30pm. It will be an evensong service with Rev. Patti Matthews as the speaker and Dr Bruce Sterling playing the organ. Please start to invite your local doctor, physio, naturopath, police officer, community nurse, paramedic etc. to offer them an opportunity to refresh and recharge.
CONFIRMATION
The Confirmation takes place on the 23rd October at the 10.30am Service. Please pray for:- Brayden Coates, Jack Lear, Oscar Lear, Olivia Lear, Tessa Cummins, Mitch Macheda. All confirmation candidates are required to attend church for the 2 weeks prior to their confirmation on the 23rd October please. Given that some of our candidates will be celebrating with family after the event we will not be having a BBQ, but there should hopefully a cake with our biscuits and cuppa after the service to invite folk to linger.
"MOVING ON" GRIEF SUPPORT
Tues 11th Oct 7.30pm in the Narthex Mary Pearson will be talking about her work with children and grief. All welcome.
READINGS NEXT WEEK
Exodus 33:12-23, Thessalonians 1:1-10
FOR THE DIARY
Oct 11th Social Responsibilities Meeting
Oct 11th "Moving On" Grief Support Group
Oct 16th St Luke's Service for the Medical Profession
Oct 18th -21st Clergy Conference
Oct 18th Friendship Group Meeting 2pm
Oct 20th Evening Guild Meeting 1.30pm
Oct 22nd Parish Fair & Garden Party
Oct 23rd Confirmation
Oct 29th Wedding
Oct 29th Garden Working Bee
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 16th Concert: Sempre Cantare
Duties for 9th October 2011
Readers 8.30 Heather Pearson, Pat Griffin
Readers 10.30 Courtney Craven, Charlotte Brewer
Servers 8.30 Beth Brewer, Michell Woodyard
Servers 10.30 Rick, Braden, Maddie
Intercessors Celebrant, Children
Euc. Assts 8.30 Carole Henderson, Volunteer
Euc. Assts 10.30 Christine Evans, Joe Fernandez
Welcomers 8.30 Shirley Dean, Bev Reither
Welcomers 10.30 Sandra Simonis, Nola Brewer
Sidespeople 8.30 Trevor Batey, Joy Campbell
Sidespeople 10.30 Nola Brewer, Mitch Macheta
Tea 8.30 Val Bambrook
Welcoming Table Dorothy Cook
Mowing Norm Mitchelmore, Alan Jeffery
Altar Linen/Oct Gwenda Betson
Duties for 16th October 2011
Readers 8.30 Carole Henderson, Gwyn Cowland
Readers 10.30 Christine Jones, Christine Evans
Servers 8.30 Beth Brewer, Michelle Woodyard
Servers 10.30 Greg, Joe, Zeb
Intercessors Heather Pearson, Nancy Noonan
Euc. Assts 8.30 Heather Fitzgerald, Ian Bryce
Euc. Assts 10.30 Greg Pestell, Lyn Prosser
Welcomers 8.30 Bev Ralph, Volunteer
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
Welcoming Table Beverley Walsh
Mowing None this week
Altar Linen/Oct Gwenda Betson
REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
Nicole Ackland, Margaret Aldous, Alan Akers, Deb Bagley, Liam Bognar, Joy & Ian Carmen, Stanley Carpenter, Ross & Helen Dainton, Beryl Goodfellow, Frank Harder, Katherine Holt, John & Kate Horder, Thelma Irwin, Ross Judd, Elsie Lieschke, Judy Lloyd, Bronwyn Mitchell, Olive Paez, Margaret Kidman, Albert Oxenbury, 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:
Carolyn Cornell
Anniversaries:
Norma Preston, Reginald Sheppard, Albert Jones 9th, Ronald Ricardo, Isabel Burgman, Jean Brauman 10th, Susan Coghlan 11th, Joyce Aldred, Joyce Elsworthy, Craig Chalker 12th, James Northey 13th, John Noonan, Marjorie Thorn, William Griffiths 14th, Margaret Hortle, Elizabeth North 15th.
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Monday 10th October
(Rector's day off)
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Tuesday 11th October
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.00am Play Group - Roz's Room
12.00am Bishop in Council
11.00am Shepparton Aged Care
7.30pm Islam Study - Rectory
7.30pm Grief Support - Narthex
Wednesday 12th October
7.45am Mattins only - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine's
2.00pm Vestry
5.30pm Hospice
6.00pm EfM - Roz's Room
Thursday 13th October
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - Mercy
11.00am Eucharist - Harmony
11.00am Eucharist - Ave Maria
5.30pm Choir Practice - Rectory
7.30pm Inter Church Council
Friday 14th October
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Saturday 15th October
(Associate Priest's Day off)
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.00am Fair Working Bee
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost 16th October
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine's
10.30am Eucharist - St. Augustine's
8.45am Eucharist - St Luke's
9.00am Eucharist - Rushworth
11.00am Eucharist - Murchison
12.15pm Baptism
5.30pm St Luke's Day Service