SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
13 May 2012
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
TIME AND INCLINATION
There really should be a clock in the Leaning Tower of Pisa, because there's no point in having the inclination if you haven't got the time.
CLOSE THE WINDOW
A man was lying peacefully asleep in bed with his wife. She woke him and said, "Close the window. It's cold outside," He grunted and turned over. After the manner of husbands. His wife nudged him again, ‘Close the window. It's cold outside." At last he got up and banged the window shut, "So now it's warm outside?"
NO COMPLAINT
A traveller arrived in a village in the middle of winter to find an old man shivering in the cold outside the synagogue. "What are you doing here?" asked the traveller. "I'm waiting for the coming of the messiah." "That must be an important job," said the traveller. "The community must pay you a lot of money." "No, not at all. They just let me sit here on this bench. Once in a while someone gives me a little food." "That must be hard. But even if they don't pay you, they must honour you for doing this important work." "No, not at all, they think I'm crazy." "I don't understand. They don't pay you, they don't respect you. You sit in the cold, shivering and hungry. What kind of job is this?" "Well, It's steady work."
THE GOSPEL TRUTH
ABOUT SHEPPARTON
Andrew Neaum
Every morning, without fail, I am at my desk very early. I look at my emails, skim the world's leading newspapers, glance at the weather report, type up my journal, and then get cracking on a pewsheet article or sermon. It is the best time of any day to be creative.
A creative connection
Then Diana slips in, greets me fondly, settles down comfortably and we talk. Often very creatively, for as I say, it is that time of the day.
Last Wednesday morning she told me that she had just heard on the radio that ninety two percent of St John's Gospel, is not to be found in any of the other three Gospels.
This lead us on to a discussion of how the Gospels were written long after the events they record, and of the reliability of memory, and of how much easier it is to remember events than dialogue, and how inevitably the events remembered and recorded are always filtered, interpreted, ordered, tidied up and made sense of.
An interesting enough discussion, but hardly original. Then there came a little moment of inspiration, one of those flashes of creative connection.
In a time and space warp
Sixty long years ago, as a young boy I spent three and a half significant years (roughly the same amount of time as Jesus' Gospel ministry) in a time warp which was also a place warp. One so sharply and clearly defined as never to be at risk of blurring or merging into other times or places in my life.
Three years all but totally isolated from what is ordinary and from the rest of the whole world by two thousand seven hundred kilometres of wild ocean. Happy, care-free, safe, scenically stunning years that have gathered around themselves a mythic quality. Garden of Eden years in my personal narrative. Told, retold, thought, rethought, interpreted, reinterpreted, over and over as the decades of my life have rolled on.
Not entirely dissimilar, we both decided, to three, strange, different, lovely, exhilarating challenging, years spent by the disciples wandering around Galilee with a person unutterably unique, fascinating, charismatic, grace-filled, wise, enigmatic. Surely the best, the very best years of their lives. Unforgettable, treasured, ruminated over, loved, and so gathering around themselves in years to come, a mythic quality. To be told, retold, thought, rethought, interpreted, reinterpreted, over and over as the decades rolled by.
Thousands of kilometres of trackless ocean
Our discussion then moved on to another island twenty six years later. Two and a half years this time, so again not all that different from the time of Jesus' Gospel ministry, and so once more a place and time so sharply and clearly defined as never to be at risk of blurring or merging into other times or places in my life. A period all but totally isolated from what is ordinary, and from the rest of the whole world by thousands of kilometres of trackless ocean. Happy, care-free, safe, scenically stunning years, that have gathered around themselves something of a mythic quality. Golden years in my personal narrative. Told, retold, thought, rethought, interpreted, reinterpreted, over and over as the decades of my life have rolled on.
Significantly though, these tellings and retellings of my time on the island St Helena run alongside someone else's tellings and retellings of time on that very island.
Diana lived there with her family. Longer than I did, five and a half years, one of them overlapping with mine. She has also been back since.
Bold similes and an amazing marriage
My St Helena story, we together decided, might well be likened to St Mark's Gospel, Diana's story, based as it is on a longer period on the island, and a greater closeness to islanders lives, might well be likened to St John's Gospel.
As is the case with all good similes and metaphors, these began to inspire other illuminating ideas, and parallels.
Our personal St Helena stories, built up and developed around dinner table anecdotes, conversations with friend and family reminiscences, like the Gospels, began as developing oral traditions.
Factual accuracies or inaccuracies in our personal oral traditions, might well point to or parallel similar factual accuracy and inaccuracies in the Gospels.
As with the Disciples and their Jesus years, the St Helena years of our lives profoundly affected the two of us. They changed our values, our outlooks our friendships and our relationships. They did so both at the time, and then later down through the years and in all sorts of ways, both large and small.
Those years became for both of us, in a sense, a sort of dream time, as surely did the Jesus time for the disciples. They came to be seen for us as definitive years, as the best years, the most significant years, unforgettable, treasured, ruminated over, and loved. They gathered around themselves a mythic quality, in our thinking, rethinking, telling, retelling, interpreting, reinterpreting over and over again as decades rolled by. They culminated ultimately, after the horrors of bereavement and widowhood, into the grace of an amazing marriage which, in a sense, made the mythic actual once more.
The ultimate authenticity test
At this point in our reflections I recalled that like St Mark with his Jesus dream time, I had actually written up my St Helena dream time in the form of a speech. A speech written and revised several times over the years, but one never ever heard by Diana.
So here then, was the possibility of the ultimate authenticity test. I read my St Helenian speech to Diana.
I looked for her judgement first on my factual accuracy. Was my account grounded in truth and in what actually happened? Then secondly, what of my interpretation of what had happened? Because like St Matthew, St Luke, St Mark and St John, my St Helena account interpreted mere facts, drew conclusions, made a not uncontentious point.
She listened carefully. All was well! No glaring inaccuracies, interpretation sound.
Most likely because, as with the Gospel writers, if you love a place, if you love a time, if you love a person, you don't trash it, sell it short, muck it up. You move heaven and earth to get it exactly right. Errors of fact, slips in style, lapses of memory, of course, perhaps. But essentially true, true, true.
Shepparton unloved and loved
The week before last I was talking about Shepparton to someone who doesn't live here and doesn't like it when they visit it.
We considered disdainfully its weather, its topography, its architecture, its want of natural beauty, its crime statistics and so on. Our criticism and disdain were not untrue, but somehow, to someone like me, who in spite of himself has learned to love the place after a fashion, albeit wryly, it wasn't truth in the sense that the Gospels are true. Nor in the way that mine and Diana's accounts of St Helena are true. Infused as all these are with deep love.
So imagine for a moment someone resident in Europe, who spent a loving and well-loved childhood many years previously in Shepparton.
They dream, do they not, of swimming on hot summer days in the clay-misted eddies of the Goulburn river. Of fishing in a tin boat for Murray Cod, longing to sink their teeth into a soft fillet of one such.
They dream of hearing again the cacophonous, pterodactylic caterwauling of the cockatoos that roost and nest in the eucalypts of the flood plain. Of chasing goannas along the bark-and-broken-branch-littered, sun parched earth, and then up the silvery trunks of our riverine gums.
The names Corio Street, Wyndham Street, Maude Street and Welsford Street, when recalled, fill them with enchantment, flood them with nostalgia and longing.
For them the old post office remains the post office for it was still standing when they left. They dream of orchards in blossom, of sun-warmed, lightly furred peaches and apricots soft to the lips and sweet on the tongue. They would die to take one more a trip to Dookie to stroll up Mount Major......
That's the Gospel truth about Shepparton.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Extract from and article by Keith Ward, Anglican priest, philosopher, theologian and scholar.
.......Alain de Botton has recently proposed to establish an atheist cathedral in London, apparently not realising that there are already atheists in our Anglican cathedrals who feel quite comfortable in their positions. But then it all depends on what you mean by atheism. If you mean there is no objective but invisible person called ‘God' who looks after people and makes sure they get parking spaces when they pray for them, quite a lot of Anglicans are atheists. But if you mean there are no objective moral ideals and demands, no ultimate mystery about the beauty and complexity of the cosmos, or that art does not open the mind to depths of significance and meaning, then very few people are atheists.
Evolutionary psychology suggests that the outlook for a wholly secular society is poor. Some feeling for God — that is, for the sense of a reality other and greater than what we observe with our senses, but somehow known in and through the sensory world — is built by evolution into the structure of the human brain. We are, at our best (and our worst), moved by devoting ourselves to causes greater than ourselves. Religions act as foci for such hardwired beliefs, giving them particular names and forms......
CONGRATULATIONS
Birthday:
Jenny Pleming 14 May
Norm Mitchelmore 14 May
BLESSING THE EMBROIDERED PANELS
To day at both services
Today we bless the splendid tritpych of embroidered panels by Ella Egan on the east wall of the Church. They represent the Resurrection, Ascension and Pentecost and are blessed by the Revd. Dr. Helen Malcolm, for it is she who has donated the two side panels in memory of her parents Ian and Marj. Malcolm. The centre panel "Ascension"was donated by St Augustine's Ladies' Guild to the glory of God and as a grateful tribute to The Women of the Parish who down through the years have contributed so much in hard work and devout worship to the life and well being of St Augustine's Church.
PLATES - Lost and Found
Carole has put out a table in the Narthex with plates that have been waiting, over the last year, to be claimed. Please check the table for an old friend you may have forgotten. We shall put any unclaimed plates in the next sale.
STUDY COURSE CONTINUES
Christian Zen and Thomas Merton
Tuesdays 1,8,15,22 May 7.30 - 9pm
The third of these interesting studies will again take place in the Narthex. Conducted by Fr Rob Whalley.
CONFIRMATION
Thursdays at 4.00pm and 7.30pm
The Junior Preparation Sessions are on Thursdays each week at 4.00pm in the Narthex. Adult sessions take place on Thursdays at 7.30pm in the Rectory.
FRIENDSHIP GROUP
Tuesday 15 May 2pm
At home in the Narthex. Come with a friend if you can and enjoy one another's good company. If you have not been before come and join in when you can.
PATRONAL FESTIVAL
10.30am 20 May followed by Lunch
The Patronal Festival takes place this year on Sunday the 20th May. Do please support it, it is a major celebration in the life of our parish. The Guest Preacher and the Speaker at the luncheon will be the Revd Kim Benton, psychologist, priest and thoroughly good fellow. The cost of a luncheon ticket will be a mere $12 for an excellent meal with a complimentary glass or two of wine. Invitations are soon to be issued. For the luncheon we would like to borrow slow cookers and rice cookers from the generous and the good, please. Let Diana in the Parish Office know if you can oblige.
EVENING GUILD
Thursday 17 May 1.30 in Roz's room
Ella Egan is to demonstrate ‘making felt brooches'. Bring with you scissors, strong thread and needles. A chance to be creative with an excellent teacher.
OUTREACH DEADLINE
Sunday 20 May
Contributions for the next edition of Outreach need to be with Helen by 20th May please – via the office or hmalcolm@bigpond.com
ARISE 255 YOUTH GROUP
Monday 23 May 5.30-7.30
This will be a chill out evening but preparations will be discussed for the
BIGGEST MORNING TEA
Thursday 24 May at 10am
The Shepparton Unit of the Cancer Council hold their "Biggest Morning Tea" in the hall of St Augustine's. Please support a worthy cause.
UGANDAN MARTYRS
Saturday 2 June 8am
We celebrate this occasion with Morning Prayer at St Brendan's followed by breakfast. Please sign if you can come so we can let them know numbers for breakfast. This is a little ecumenical endeavour that has been in place annually for a good number of years now and is well worth supporting. It will also be a good chance to introduce yourself to the new priest at St Brendan's, Fr Joe Taylor. The Ugandan Martyrs were brave Christians from both our denominations.
MEN'S BREAKFAST
Saturday 9 June after 8am Eucharist
Sign up in the Narthex for the best breakfast in town and in top company too. The speaker has still to be decided upon.
ANYONE'S BREAKFAST
There is a more modest breakfast available to all in the Narthex on Thursday and Friday morning's after the 8.00am Eucharist. Real coffee, tea, toast and a variety of marmalades and jams.
PARISH COUNCIL
Wednesday 7.30pm - Roz's Room
There is a meeting of the Parish Council on Wednesday the 16th at 7.30pm in Roz's Room.
RAFFLE
Draw on 13 June after the 10am service
Prize: hand-painted plate by Joan McKellar. Tickets available from Guild members or Nola Brewer at $2.00 a ticket in aid of ABM.
FOR THE DIARY
May15 Tue Friendship Group
May 17 Thu Evening Guild
May 20 Sun St Augustine's Patronal Festival
May 20 Sun Outreach deadline
May 21 Mon Arise - Youth Group 5.30-7.30
May 24 Thurs Cancer Council Biggest Tea 10am
May 25-26th Synod - Wangaratta
May 26 Sat Garden Working Bee
May 28-31 Lay and Clergy Conference - Harrietville
June 2 Sat Ugandan Martyrs Morning Prayer and Breakfast
Jun 9 Sat Men's Breakfast after 8am mass
Jun 12 Tue Grief Support
Jun 14 Thu Parish Fair Planning Meeting 4.00pm
Jun 25-29 Clergy in Service Training Trinity College
July 15 Sun Confirmation
Sept 24-27 Clergy Retreat, Harrietville
Oct 6 Sat Car Boot Murchison
Oct 20 Sat 2012 Parish Fair and Garden Party
REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
At the beginning of each month this list is cleared. Names need putting down again on the list in the narthex and signed in. No names to be listed without permission.
Dulcie Ackland, Hilary & Alan Akers, Liam Bognar, Peter Burgess, Betty Bush, Michael Egan, Christine Furze, Frank Harder, Bruce Hodgson & family, Katherine Holt, Bill Hunter, Margaret Kidman, Elsie Lieschke, Merle Maskell, Adrian Moule, Sandra Simonis, Heather Steen, Fay Warren, Joyce & Ray.
Rest in Peace: Donald Oliver, Mary Campbell.
Anniversaries: Thomas Cochran, Alf Taig, Alan Bailey (14 April), Jake Green, Mary Howard, Geoffrey Bowen, Robert Moss, Erma Wilson, Christine Beard, Dreven Lines(15 May), William Wilson, John Maynard, Ellen Pearson (17 May), Rubina Young, Leonard Brereton, John Reed (18 May), Beryl Long, Stanley Rutherford (19 May).
Duties for Sunday 13 May
Reader 8.30 Carole, Norm Mitchelmore
Intercessors 8.30 Bev Condon
Servers 8.30 Michelle(C),Beth,Soibhan
Euc. Assts 8.30 Grace, John Holder
Sidespeople 8.30 Gwyn and Merv Cowland
Welcomer 8.30 Anita Saville, Heather Nichols
Welcome Table 8.30 Dorothy Cook, Beverley Walsh
Tea 8.30 Shirley Dean
Readers 10.30 Andrea Fisher, Peter Martin
Intercessors 10.30 Charlotte Brewer
Servers 10.30 Soibhan,Joe,
Euc. Assts 10.30 Grace, Christine Evans
Sidespeople 10.30 Chris Sim, Charlotte Brewer
Welcomers 10.30 volunteer, Frank Steen,
Welcome Table 10.30 Judy Lloyd , Bev Condon
Projector 10.30 Lionel Waterson
Children's Church Suzanne
Mowing 19 May Marg and Brendan Carroll
Altar Linen -May Gwenda Betson
Monday Office Linda
Duties for Sunday 20 May
Reader 8.30 John Wellman, Bev Condon
Intercessors 8.30 Victoria Heenan
Servers 8.30 Joe Pearson(C),Beth, Michelle
Euc. Assts 8.30 Grace , Heather Pearson
Sidespeople 8.30 John Griffin,Norm Mitchelmore
Welcomer 8.30 Gwenda Betson, Pat Griffin
Welcome Table 8.30 Dorothy Cook, Judy Lloyd
Tea 8.30 Bev Reither
Readers 10.30 Mary Pearson, Courtney Craven
Intercessors 10.30 Christine Jones
Servers 10.30 to be discovered
Euc. Assts 10.30 Linda Prosser, Jenny
Sidespeople 10.30 John Pleming, Robert Gilbert
Welcomers 10.30 Beryl Black, Irene Crawford
Welcome Table 10.30 Dorothy Cook
Projector 10.30 Black Family
Children's Church Grace
Mowing none
Altar Linen -May Gwenda Betson
Monday Office Barbara Brown, Jeanette Smith
READINGS NEXT SUNDAY 20 May
Acts 115-17, 21-26 1 John 59-13
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Sunday 13 May Sixth of EASTER
5.30pm Evening Prayer- Lady Chapel
Monday 14 May
Rector's day off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.00pm Evening Prayer- Lady Chapel
Tuesday 15 May
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10-12pm Play Group -Roz's Room- Church Hall.
11.00am Shepp Aged Care
2.00pm Friendship Group
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
7.30pm Merton / Zen Study
Wednesday 16 May
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine's
4.00pm Eucharist - Banksia
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
7.30pm Parish Council
Thursday 17 May Ascension Day
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
8.25am Narthex Breakfast
9.30am Eucharist -Tarcoola
11.00am Eucharists - Harmony
1.30pm Guild
4.00pm Confirmation Class-Juniors
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Choir Practice
7.30pm Confirmation Class-Adults
Friday 18 May
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
8.25am Narthex Breakfast
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Saturday 19 May Dunstan
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
Sunday 20 May Patronal Festival
8.30am Said Eucharist - St Augustine's- No sermon
10.30am Sung Family Eucharist with St Luke's & St Mary's
9.00am Eucharist - Murchison
11.00am Eucharist - Rushworth
12.00pm Parish Luncheon
5.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel