SEVENTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
12 May 2013
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
I’LL BE DOGGONE
A bloke and his mongrel dog went into a posh restaurant, famous for its gourmet food and its string quartet. The head waiter said, “I’m very sorry, sir, but we don’t allow dogs in this restaurant.” “But this isn’t just any dog,” said the bloke, “he was trained by that fellow on the ABC. He can speak too. Look, if he tells you the name of the composer who wrote that stuff the string quartet is playing, will you let us stay?” “Perhaps,” said the head waiter. “Okay, Blue. Who’s the composer?” “Bach,” went the dog. “That’s nonsense,” said the head waiter, throwing both bloke and dog out of the restaurant. As they hit the pavement, the dog said, “Sorry about the mistake. It was, of course, Mozart.
THIS AND THAT (84)
Andrew Neaum
Showered and fortified by coffee I get down to this weekly task of pew sheet writing happily at 5.15 in the morning.
Daily baptism
An early morning shower is my daily baptism. It washes away the night’s gloom and doom. Once under near scalding water my mind clicks into gear, thoughts gestate, ideas are born and the world seems a good place to be a part of.
It is pessimistic thoughts and worries that drive me from my bed early each morning. Unless I am on holiday I rarely linger under the doona. On holiday gloom is driven away by a book before a shower. On working days, very shortly after awaking, I roll out of bed, don a dressing gown and after a cup of water head outside to open up the Church for Geoff, should he be around. He too is a very early riser. As often as not he is already sweeping or hosing down the brick paths around the church building, or lying on his back by the north narthex door anticipating the beauty of dawn. He’s no pessimist. He invariably greets me positively and then, over a cup of tea, sets about beginning his day by reading the psalms and saying his prayers.
My sister insists that my propensity to look upon and articulate the gloomy side of things has been with me ever since I was a little boy. No one could accuse me of being a doom and gloom merchant or a misery monger though. It is all about needing to articulate the worst in order to acknowledge and appreciate the best. I recently likened Diana and myself to a battery. She the positive terminal and me the negative. What electricity! It is a simile that illustrates my point though, underlying all optimism is pessimism and vice versa.
Nightingales
Diana has just walked in on me. This normally means a switch from writing to conversation, usually creative and amusing. Not today though, there is too much to do.
It fascinates us both that hardly anything we ever say is totally random. There is always a trigger. For example, as she kissed me good morning I immediately thought of nightingales. I said to her, “why do you think I am thinking of nightingales?” She responded, “because in a few weeks time we will be living in Barkly Street (with Nathan and Lil in Benalla). She is rarely short of a good retort, the connection or trigger for this being the singing nightingale of Berkeley Square.
That however was not the trigger for my nightingales. The morning’s greeting kiss was from her standing next to me sitting down and so I was exposed to her jugular. In Elizabethan poetry the nightingale’s song is written (goodness knows why) as “jug jug”, and so nightingales came to my mind not randomly, but as always triggered, this time by the proximity of her jugular.
Rambunctious
By the time anyone reads this the great Farewell Bash will be over. I called it an “Elegiac Banquet” on the Invitation, imagining it to be a gently regretful ceremony in gratitude for a good time together as parish priest and people now come to an end. A day before its arrival, with well over three hundred folk having signified their intention to be present, it looks more like being rambunctious than gentle, celebratory than regretful. All the better for that. As with the gloom that undergirds my life’s more dominant merriment, so may any sadness and sorrow at our leaving the parish, having been articulated and acknowledged in that title, give rise to nothing but laughter, fun and joy.
A recent farewell article by me published in The Advocate was entitled “In My End Is My Beginning”. It is a quote from T S Eliot and I used it to ruminate upon returning to finish my ministry where my father began his, in England. Ends and beginnings, like optimism and pessimism are nearly always closely related. I have just had a look at the first pew sheet I produced after my Induction as Rector of this Parish of Shepparton. It contains a little article entitled “This and That”, as of course does this one, which is this one! In that one, the article was unnumbered. This one that you are reading is number 84 of a series.
Leaving and arriving
In that early pew sheet I begin: There is a lot to be said for a house with almost no furniture in it. It is easy to keep clean, easy to walk about in, especially in the dark and appears more than usually spacious. The only room in the Rectory that is furnitured-up, is the little study, my “cave-of-making”, which has far less shelves in it than my last study and so many of my books are next door, which is no great bother. Like most animals I have a need for a bolt hole, a den, a retreat in which to be myself and accomplish, or allow to be, things that really matter. The first of these is my study and the second is a small corner in a chapel or church to make my own. Both are now set up here in Shepparton and so I can exist and function and even perhaps begin to flourish.
“In my end is my beginning.....” for once more the house has almost no furniture and the room still most “furnitured-up” is my study. Again I find a bare house more pleasing than not and although there is pain in divesting ourselves of most of our possessions, some of them much loved, there is also a great sense of liberation. I arrived all those years ago on my own, leaving Margaret and Rachel in Wodonga until the finish of Rachel’s school year and career. The furniture came down here with them later, as did Pippin the dog.
To leave a place and people you hold dear sharpens your appreciation of them. Helps you to treasure them rather than take them for granted. Bask in my favour then. I view you all with delight and joy. To arrive somewhere new is also to see things with delight. Leaving and arriving, like endings and beginnings, like optimism and pessimism, like darkness and light need each other.
Cosy chapels
I wrote in that first article: The chapel in St Augustine's is balm to my soul, for it is so lovely, as lovely as any in which I have set up my corner, though when I think about it there have been others almost and perhaps just as enchanting.
In my first parish, a farming and mining town in what used to be Rhodesia, we built a chapel on to what was a simple but lovely church while I was there. On hot summer mornings, with the windows open, the calling of the turtle doves, the twittering of swifts and the hum of bees in the great Eucalyptus outside all spoke most beautifully of the Divine.
My next parish was on the Island of the St Helena and I set up a chapel in a little side room, little more than an aisle. There the scent of wild ginger flowers on the altar, the calling of the lovely little barred ground doves and the sound of light rain squalls on the iron roof spoke similarly to my heart.
The parish of Skipton, my first in Australia, had the tiniest of chapels made from a closed off side porch which had been turned into a "Shrine to our Lady of Walsingham" by its previous and extremely Anglo-catholic incumbent. It was cosy, but memorable in no other way.
Holy Trinity Ararat when I first arrived had a cold, windowless chapel made in a vacated pipe organ transept. It was notable for a truly awful bas-relief Madonna and Child, carved from wood by a previous parishioner and luridly painted. Eventually we bought a decent pipe organ for the church and left our Lady with the vapid smile on the wall behind it, making a new chapel behind the high altar. This was particularly lovely as the dawn's light gradually filled the church from behind me, through a great east window, while I sat on winter mornings, hunched and black-cloaked, in what was too often semi-torpid devotion.
In Wodonga the chapel is hardly a chapel at all, open to the main church, a mere side altar and in itself not at all lovely, but the modern church has beautifully coloured glass and so shafts of bejewelled light were always surprising me in unexpected and remote corners of the church as I sat there quietly each day. In the evenings the great vertical neon lights of the main church became a deep and almost gory red from the westering sun shining on them through a red rose window as if they were crucifixion nails.
I love churches! I love living next to a church and so being able to use it easily and regularly. It is wonderful that we are able still to keep St Augustine's open for folk to pop in to as they like.
Interviewed on Skype
Last week, on Tuesday evening, I was interviewed on Skype by the Bishop of Southampton (a delightful man), the Vicar of a parish in the part of Winchester Diocese overseen by that Bishop, and three parishioners. It was all to do with a parish church that we might well be appointed to. The interview went well and so I have been appointed on a “House for Duty” basis as Assistant Curate to the Vicar with oversight of a lovely church as well as a small chapel in a beautiful part of Hampshire that borders the New Forest National Park and is but a few miles from the coast. It is a three day a week post with no salary, but a fine house in which to live and a garden to revel in. I cannot name the parish yet as the appointment will not be announced until all necessary police clearances and so on have been granted. The house is large and so should be a good place for folk to come to visit us. Whether or not it will have any furniture in it is another matter!
The main parish church is somewhat older than St Augustine’s and just as lovely in its distinctive way. It has a tower, though rather squatter than many, and the structure of the building can be traced back to the late-11th century. Built of ashlar and chalk rubble with flints, the original fabric was enlarged and refashioned in the 13th and 14th centuries, and there have been numerous other alterations and additions. It appears to be very lovely, set well apart from any buildings in a rural setting with an ancient and well daffodilled church yard. All most exciting.
I suppose we should honour Mothers’ Day and so here is an old and shocking poem which I dearly love and which says it all:
Ballad of the Speaking Heart
A poor lad once and a lad so trim,
Gave his heart to her who loved not him;
Said she, “bring me tonight, you rogue,
Your mother’s heart to feed my dog.”
To his mother’s house went the young man,
Killed her, cut out her heart, and ran.
But as he was running, look you, he fell,
And the heart rolled out on the ground as well.
And the lad, as the heart was a-rolling, heard
The heart was speaking and this was the word
The heart was a-weeping, and crying so small:
“Are you hurt, my child, are you hurt at all?”
For the whole series of these articles so far see: http://www.andrewneaum.com/articles.htm
FROM THE REGISTERS
Birthday:
Jim Olphert. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12th May
Jennifer Pleming. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14th May
Norm Mitchelmore. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14th May
Anniversary:
Bev & Michael Condon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12th May
THANK YOU ANNE
For many years Anne Russell has looked after the folk at Pine Road Nursing Home. She has visited them regularly, given Communion where necessary and been our pastoral presence there. She has now, at last given it up and Christine Evans has taken up the role. Many thanks Anne for such devoted and quiet service on our behalf for so long. It is greatly appreciated.
INFORMAL ‘BRING & SHARE’ LUNCH
12 May after 10.30am Eucharist
Sunday May 12 happens to be Mother’s Day and so many folk will be celebrating en famille. However, because it is the Neaum’s last Sunday in the parish those who are not committed to family celebrations are invited to bring along to share a light lunch after the 10.30am Eucharist. Tea and Coffee will be provided (plus anything else still edible from the twelve baskets left over from Friday’s Elegiac Dinner). Murchison and Rushworth folk will be joining us at St Augustine’s and we are hoping that Dookie and Katandra will too.
HOSPICE TEA AND HARMONY
14 May Tuesday 1.30pm
Eastbank Centre
Guest Speaker: Peter Roberts from Geelong. Guest Artist: Kathryn Bradbury, nee King, from the Gold Coast. All funds to the GV Hospice Care Service. Tickets:$30 available from Pat 58313080 or Heather 58299418
GRIEF SUPPORT
14 May Tuesday 7.00pm Narthex
We will be meeting in the Narthex at 7.00pm. All are welcome for a discussion.
LADIES GUILD
16 May Thursday 1.30pm - Anita Saville’s
Our next meeting will be held at the home of President, Anita Saville. We will enjoy a DVD together. Members are requested to bring a small plate of food for afternoon tea. The winner of the raffle will be drawn on that day.
“BIGGEST MORNING TEA” FOR CANCER RESEARCH
23 May from 10.00am Supper Room
Entry $5.00, we look forward to your support. Bev Reither 58211723.
ECUMENICAL SERVICE
26 May Sunday 7.00pm Uniting Church, Maude St
The annual Pentecost Ecumenical Service will be held on Sunday, May 26 at the Uniting Church, Maude Street Shepparton at 7.00pm. Fr Joe Taylor will be the preacher. This does need our support!
INDUCTION
2 June Sunday 4.30pm
Our new Rector, The Revd Des Potter, is to be inducted at Choral Evensong on 2 June, 4.30pm, followed by excellent food and drink. Do come to greet him and his wife Joke.
OUTREACH
Please collect your copy of Outreach from the Narthex. If your copy is not there it may have been taken for delivery.
DIARY DATES
May 15 Wed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Parish Council
May 16 Thur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ladies Guild
May 21 Tues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friendship Group
May 23 Thu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4pm Raffle sub Committee Roz’s Room
May 25 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Garden Working Bee
May 26 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Ecumenical Service Uniting Church 7pm
May 31 Fri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Synod
June 1 Fri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Synod
June 2 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Patronal Festival & Induction of New Rector
June 8 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Martyrs of Uganda Service and Breakfast
June 13 Thur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4pm Fair Planning Group Roz’s Room
Oct 19 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Parish Fair
Oct 26 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Murchison - Boot Sale
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.
Joyce Cavill, Alan, Bruce Hodgson & family, Elsie Lieschke, Paul Liversedge, Edwyn Johnson Bob & June McKellar, Colin MacKenzie, Toni & Frank Mathot, Coral Prosser, Lynda Saville, Scott Family, Sandra Simonis, Suzanne Singh, Nick Sleeth, Patricia Sparkes, Gloria Wayman, Cheryl, Simon, Joy, James & Rachel, Ray, David, Tom, Alan.
Rest in Peace: Jill Tonks
Anniversaries: Charles Causon, Alma Broughton(12 May), May Jones, Douglas Walker (13 May), Julie McKendry (14 May), Pamela Oliver, Florence Graham (15 May), Doris Buzza, Eva Ford, Margaret Galt (16 May), Robert Simonis, Wilfred Parry, Marjorie Sweet, Clive Baker (17 May), Don Classen, Gladys Turner, Enid Hughes, Raymond Williams, Kenneth Ross (18 May),
READINGS PENTECOST 19 May
Acts 21-21, Psalm 10426-36, Romans 8 14-17
Duties for Seventh Sunday of Easter 12 May 2013
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pat Griffin, Bev Condon
Intercessor 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jeanette Smith
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Griffin, Soibhan, Michelle,
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joe Pearson, Heather Pearson
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gwyn and Merv Cowland
Welcomer 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beryl Goodfellow, Heather Nichols
Welcome Tbl 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barbara Schier
Reader 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Aaron Bhat
Intercessor 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ryan Bhat
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Soibhan
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chris Evans, Joe Fernandez
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Irene Crawford,Donna Venables
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Yasmin Bhat, Irene Crawford
Welcome Tbl 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Projector 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Black Family
Children’s Church 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Diana Neaum
Monday Office 13 May. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jenny Mintern, Jan Phillips
Mowing 18 May . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Pleming, John Wellman
Duties Pentecost Sunday 19 May 2013
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Norm Mitchelmore, Gwyn Cowland
Intercessor 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Victoria Heenan
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . M. Woodyard, S. Glenn, B. Brewer
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Horder, Heather Pearson
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Di Gribble, Gavin Gall
Welcomer 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Eileen Quaifee
Welcome Tbl 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dorothy Cook, Bev Condon
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shirley Dean
Reader 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Peter Martin
Intercessor 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jenny Pleming
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Linda Prosser, Joe Fernandez
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Pleming, Leoni Gilbert
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beryl Black, Bev Condon
Welcome Tbl 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dorothy Cook, Bev Condon
Projector 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Charlotte Brewer
Children’s Church 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Pearson
Mowing 18 May. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .None
Monday Office 20 May. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pat Gibson
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Sunday 12 May 7th Sunday of Easter
5.30pm Evening Prayer- Lady Chapel
Monday 13 May Rector’s Day Off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
7.30pm Grief Support
Tuesday 14 May
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.00am Play Group
5.00pm Evening Prayer
Wednesday 15 May Julian of Norwich
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
4.00pm Eucharist - Banksia (Jenny Pleming)
5.00pm Evening Prayer
7.30pm Parish Council
Thursday 16 May
7.45am Mattins only - Lady Chapel
9.30am Tarcoola
11.00am Harmony
Hospital
1.30pm Ladies Guild
5.00pm Evening Prayer
5.30pm Choir Practice
Friday 17 May
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
Saturday 18 May
7.45am Mattins only - Lady Chapel
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
Sunday 19 May Pentecost
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine’s
10.30am Eucharist & Children’s Church with Baptism - St Augustine’s
9.00am Eucharist - Rushworth
11.00am Eucharist - Christ Church Murchison
8.45am Reserve Sacrament - Bev Condon
5.30pm Evening Prayer