HOME
THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER
14 April 2013
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
HE WOULD A WOOING GO
An Australian business man, shy and with little if any romance in his life was scanning the books for sale at the new Hong Kong airport when he noticed a thick paperback entitled “How to Woo”. Given that he was scheduled to spend quite a lot of time in that part of the world he thought that it might, just might, prove useful. Knowledge of the appropriate social etiquette might well improve his life romantically speaking. Settling back in his seat after takeoff, in a Boeing heading for Beijing, he was chagrined to discover that he had just purchased volume two of the Hong Kong telephone directory.
THIS AND THAT (80)
Andrew Neaum
Almost daily I have been visiting someone dying this past week or two. Cycling to the hospital in lovely weather has provided me with the pause for thought that such visits call for. How glad it makes me that I have not to have divested myself of quite my whole library. Some books are too precious to give away and so I was able to uncover this marvellous poem by Mary Oliver, yet another of those lovely American poets of whom we arrogant Brits and Aussies are too often ignorant:
When Death Comes
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
RETURN TO
TRISTAN DA CUNHA (15)
Friday 28 September 2012 3.30pm
I sit in the Internet Café using my own little travelling computer connected properly to the net for the first time and so now all my “dropbox” files are up to date. I have even taken a quick look at the St Augustine’s pew sheets for the last two weeks. John Southerden appears to be doing well and suggests that so productive is the Rectory vegetable garden Diana and I should consider ourselves market gardeners.
The weather was pretty foul yesterday and we didn’t do much worthy of note, though it was an enjoyable enough day. The most fascinating feature of the weather here is the “lee”. When a calm stillness bathes the settlement area and the two flags in front of the Prince Phillip Hall hang limp, the same is not necessarily so out to the east and west. Go too far in either direction and as likely as not there begins greyness, misty rain and wind, while out at sea the waves are white capped and wind whipped. The island's lee is complicated, perhaps, I speculate, forming some sort of vacuum, like a boat's sail, the vacuum in the case of a boat being what propels or rather pulls it along. Here the lee of so mighty an obstruction as a 6,760 foot mountain appears to pull in the wind round either side of an actual and fairly intense lee. All very interesting.
In the evening we took out of the fridge what we thought was a joint of lamb, but it turned out to be beef. Pieces of somewhat cartilaginous “hamstring” of all things, so I boiled them all up and we changed menus and had toad-in-the-hole. I turned the meat into what became a very tasty curry.
Earlier in the day we visited Judy, where I dandled her grandchild, Kirsty’s little boy. Kirsty is the organist at the Church and Judy is my mother’s godchild.
I have done a sermon of sorts and now have to get on and prepare a little prayer service for the young girl who is so grievously ill in England. The weather has now brightened up and Diana is in the vestry with some women fixing up the funeral pall which has deteriorated with age and is in dire need of repair work. We ate the curry appreciatively for lunch as there is another party tonight.
Saturday 29 September, 2012 5.35pm
We learned that the Kerrs had made a private arrangement to go to Nightingale Island yesterday or the day before, but the boat they were going on conked a little way out to sea and they had to hang around for an hour or two in a gentle swell waiting to be rescued.
We awoke to the sound of a gong at about a quarter to six, the day still with a calm sea though little sun due to a covering of high cloud. It is now misty, there has been some light rain and the horizon has blurred itself out of existence. We have had an idle day at home. I thought about walking up the Hill Piece, but didn’t bother. The only outing we made was to Garden Gate beach to gaze into the remaining rock pools. There I caught sight of two of the sort of little fish we used to catch as boys, but only a glimpse as they darted off. The pools were nowhere near as magically and mysteriously lovely as my memory tells me they were. Mind you the tide wasn’t far enough out to do them justice either.
Yesterday’s party was enjoyable. In part it was a farewell from the Island to Bob the Dental Technician who has been coming to Tristan regularly for years and is much loved. He gave a speech in so broad a Scots accent that I could only catch about one word in three. He is truly a delightful fellow. The party was also in honour of the sixty fifth birthday of a near contemporary of mine, Barbara, who must have been at school with me all those years ago and again a friendly and lovely person. The visiting Dentist’s little girl’s third birthday was also acknowledged to her great excitement. We stayed on a bit and indulged in some fairly frenetic dancing, the music Country and Western and easy to dance to because of its usually so solid beat. It was a good, old fashioned dance in that the elderly danced as much as anyone if not more, and little kids were having a go as well. I danced mostly with Diana, but once with an island lass who asked me, and once with Carlene. We left at about half ten, me wringing with sweat for it was as hot as Hades inside the hall and I had been kicking my heels up in wild, terpsichorean frenzy.
Jim told me, when I was pruning the hydrangeas outside today, that their trip to Nightingale had hardly taken them out of the harbour before one of the boat’s two engines, burnt out, its propellor choked on kelp, and the other wouldn’t start. So they had well over an hour adrift before being rescued and towed in. In the evening we went round to their place for a party. It was most pleasant and being in a house was of necessity more exclusive, rather than open slather to one and all. We left as the invitation directed, at 7.30pm and came home to watch a bit of TV and then, while Diana continued her repair of the funeral pall, I read aloud and finished K. Barrow’s “Three Years on Tristan da Cunha”, a fascinating read. The book can be downloaded free as an e-book from the “Gutenberg Project”.
Sunday 30 September, 2012 11.18am
The supply ship, the Baltic Trader, is here. It arrived in the middle of the night after what appears to have been a difficult voyage. It is a cargo ship leased to the Fishing Company apparently with a Russian crew not noted for easy cooperation with the locals and so it takes far longer to unload than does the Edinburgh. It arrived during the night and was the vessel that we were booked on when our berths on the Agulhas were taken from us. We are grateful that space on the Agulhas was found for us in the end, because this voyage on the Baltic trader was by all accounts less than delightful. It took ten days, so fierce was the weather. They sometimes made only one knot and had to head north for two days to avoid too violent a swell. It would have meant a mere six days on the island for us and no Sunday!
After church we went down and watched a pontoon come in and be offloaded, quite dangerous it seemed to me, for the crane loads swing around a fair bit, even in the relative calm of the little harbour. Fortunately the day is calm, though it was raining when we got up and lightly when I walked to church. Any passengers are offloaded by crane in a little covered cubicle, in itself this would be quite scary or exhilarating, I would imagine. If the cubicle swung enough to hit the side of the ship it would rattle false teeth. We are told that given the slowness of the crew and the amount to be unloaded it will take four or five days for the job to be done. There are apparently a couple of cars to be offloaded, one apparently for the Administrator, though I never saw any evidence of it, to my way of thinking he should be setting an example and not bothering with a car at all! The most dangerous load was a pile of reinforcing mesh, the bottom sheet of which became detached and swung around most nastily.
The island appears to have a very leisurely work ethic, something to be proud of not ashamed, and every weekend seems to be a sort of long weekend. The shop closes at 2.30 pm on Fridays, as does everything else, or pretty well so. A sociologist or social anthropologist might well find the place worthy of a thesis. In some ways it appears to be a benignly functioning socialist state in microcosm. There is much that is commendable and attractive about this, like support for each other, especially the sick and elderly, strict egalitarianism in such things as the common ownership of land, the number of cattle and sheep allowed to each islander, (two cows per family and I think two sheep per person) and so on. However, as you would expect, local leadership is difficult if it involves censure or penalising of islanders, all of whom are related to each other in some way. Wages by world standards are modest and there are few folk, if any who earn really substantial ones. To be a crayfish catcher augments a daytime job very nicely for the fifty or so days a year that are fishing days, however, if you are a Head of Department you are not allowed days off to fish and so many of the best men prefer to be number two to number one.
We were somewhat light in numbers at church this morning, presumably because the Baltic Trader is here and requires all sorts of primary and secondary labour and possibly too because folk were required to deal with the crayfish caught yesterday. The catch was apparently a better one than the last time, four and a half tons instead of three, the females are now being caught as well. However Marina the Administrator’s wife was present at church as too the two older Kerrs. My sermon was a partly autobiographical narrative based around the old fellow’s comment on his need to return to Tristan, because in England he could no longer “hear the voice of God”. Narrative sermonising nearly always goes down well and for the first time I felt folk were with me. Later, on the way down to the harbour, I got my first direct comment on a sermon from a younger islander in her thirties: “that was a nice sermon you gave Father”. It was my last sermon on the island. I have still to gather prayers to form an appropriate little service for the youngster ill in England and also think about a School Assembly for tomorrow.
I intend making fishcakes tonight, so there is a great nog of unidentified fish defrosting as I write.
Monday 1 October, 2012 6.07pm
I have just returned from a trip up to the top of Hill Piece with Jim Kerr, Simon, Emily, Bethany, and a little girl friend of Bethany’s called Chloe. The Hill Piece is a green hill, stepped all the way up and round by generation after generation of grazing sheep and cattle. It is a “Piece” of hill because the sea is gradually eroding it away and on the seaward side there is a lividly coloured, red-brown and ochre precipitous slope and cliff falling down to a wild sea. There were stunning views from the top, but an icy wind as well.
Jim told me on the way that during his earlier stint on the island as a teacher he would take kids regularly up the Base mountain from behind the Settlement and that in those days he would be up the mountain three or four times a week. He must have been very fit. They had a project counting and ringing albatrosses nesting there. He says that there are a variety of possible routes up the two thousand feet, but until well familiar with them anyone would need a guide.
We are on a list to go to Nightingale tomorrow, but it still depends upon the weather and there was a strong and cold wind on top of Hill Piece. At the house it has been still all day. As I have noted the lee is a strange thing.
On the way back I saw my first rat, a dead and squashed one on the road. I also noticed that the barge from the ship was heading in a strange direction on its way back from the Baltic Trader, so I went down to the harbour to see what was happening.
I have to say that the groups of men standing round evince such a lack of willingness to communicate in anyway as to make me not much want to bother. However I am sure it is not animosity, though there is certainly a barrier of some sort, perhaps a macho solidarity that resists anything not artisan, or a mild xenophobia, or a lack of social grace, I don’t know. At dances many of the men hang out on their own outside and at parties in people’s houses, as often as not they disappear to a room on their own. However, once I had made an effort they were friendly and communicative and it turns out that the barge was picking up a few cray fish pots they had dropped on the way out to the ship.
FROM THE REGISTERS
Birthdays:
Claire Fisher. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 April
Alexandra Radevski. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 April
FRIENDSHIP GROUP
16 April Tuesday 2pm Art Gallery
Meet at 2pm at the Art Gallery followed by tea in the restaurant. For a lift call Val: 58216974.
PARISH COUNCIL
17 April Wednesday 7.30pm
This will be my last with you. So afterwards we repair to the Rectory for supper and a snort!
LADIES GUILD
18 April Thursday 1.30 in Roz’s Room
This month a general meeting with much to discuss and enjoy.
LAY SILENT RETREAT
19-21 April Feathertop Chalet Harrietville
‘The Still Point of the Turning World:
Walking the Labyrinth & Centring Prayer’
The 2013 Diocesan Lay Retreat is to be led by Helen Malcolm and Rob Whalley. For more information please call 57 213 484. The cost is $200, but partial “scholarships” are available from the Diocese.
PETER ACKLAND REST IN PEACE
20 April Saturday 11.00am
On Saturday the ashes of Peter Ackland will be laid to rest in the Memorial Garden. Anyone who wishes to attend will be most welcome.
GREATER SHEPPARTON AWARDS 2013
20 April Saturday 2pm for 2.30pm
We have entered our Gardens and Premises for an award. Will we win anything? If you would like to come to the ceremony and see, sign up. We can take a crowd.
OUTREACH
28 April, Sunday Helen’s deadline for material
A FAREWELL MEAL
An “Elegiac Banquet”
10 May Friday 6.00pm Church Hall
A Farewell to the Neaums will be held on the date above. There will be a dinner and drinks, a speech or two and if anyone would like to put on an act of any sort for us, make an offer to John Griffin or via the office. Please find your invitation on the Table in the Narthex.
DIARY DATES
April 16 Tues. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Friendship Group-Art Gallery
April 18 Thurs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ladies Guild
April 19-21st Weekend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lay Retreat - Harriettesville
April 20 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gt Shepp Awards Ceremony
April 22 Mon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arise 255 Youth Group
April 28 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deadline for Outreach
May 10 Fri. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rector’s Farewell 6.00PM
May 23 Thu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4pm Raffle sub Committee Roz’s Room
May 31-June 1 Fri-Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .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.
Hilary & Alan Akers, Liam Bognar, Joyce Cavill, Frank Harder, Bruce Hodgson & family, Katherine Holt, John Justin & Cheryl, Dos King, Bob & June McKellar, Lynda Saville, Sandra Simonis, Suzanne Singh, Ray, Vanessa, Simon, Joy, Adrian, John, Dawn, Kent, Scott, Win.
Rest in Peace: Peter Ackland
Anniversaries: Thomas Cochran, Alf Taig, Alan Batey(14 Ap), Jake Green, Molly Howard, Geoffrey Bowden, Robert Moss, Erma Wilson, Christine Beard, Dreven Lines, Emily Dean(15 Ap), William Wilson, John Maynard, Eileen Pearson(17 Ap), Bobby Young, Leonard Brereton, John Reed (18 Ap), Beryl Long, Stanley Rutherford(19 Ap), Bill Ibbott, Mabel Ford, Frederick Petschack, Esther Baker(20Ap).
READINGS EASTER FOUR 21 April
Acts9 36-43, Psalm 23, Revelation 79-17
Duties for Third Sunday of Easter14 April 2013
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pat Griffin, Norm Mitchelmore
Intercessor 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Victoria Heenan
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Griffin, Michelle, Beth
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Horder, Bev Condon
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Di Gribble, Gavin Gall
Welcomer 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bev Reither, Pam Nicholls
Welcome Tbl 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Shirley Dean
Reader 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chris Evans
Intercessor 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Andrea Fisher
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jenny, Sarah, James
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joe Fernandez, Chris Evans
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Pleming, Donna Venables
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Charlotte Brewer, volunteer
Welcome Tbl 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Projector 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Pearson
Children’s Church10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Diana Neaum
Monday Office 15 April. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Barbara Brown, Pat Gibson
Mowing 20 April . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Garry Grant, John Horder
Duties Fourth Sunday of Easter 21 April 2013
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Victoria Heenan, Liz Gyles
Intercessor 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Nor Weaver
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .,Michelle, Soibhan, Beth
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heather Pearson, Barbara Schier
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bev Ralph, Max Ralph
Welcomer 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Judy Trevena, Gwenda Betson
Welcome Tbl 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dorothy, Bev
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bev Reither
Reader 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Pearson
Intercessor 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . none as Baptism
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Olivia, Oscar
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jenny, Joe
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Pleming, Leoni Gilbert
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beryl Black, Frank Steen
Welcome Tbl 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Dorothy Cook, Bev Condon
Projector 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Black family
Children’s Church10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Suzanne Lear
Mowing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .none
Monday Office 22 April. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joyce Oxley, Bob Galt
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Sunday 14 April 3rd Sunday of Easter
5.30pm Evening Prayer- Lady Chapel
Monday 15 April Rector’s Day Off
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
11.00am Shepparton Aged Care
Tuesday 16 April
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
10.00am Play Group
2.00pm Friendship Group-Art Gallery
5.00pm Evening Prayer
Wednesday 17 April
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist - St Augustine’s
4.00pm Banksia
5.00pm Evening Prayer
7.30pm Parish Council
Thursday 18 April
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
9.300am Tarcoola
10.15am Grutzner
11.00am Harmony
Hospital
1.30pm Ladies Guild
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Choir Practice
Friday 19 April
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Saturday 20 April
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
2.00pm Greater Shepparton Award Ceremony
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
Sunday 21 April 4th Sunday of Easter
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine’s
10.30am Eucharist, Baptisms & Children’s Ch - St Aug
9.00am Eucharist -St Paul’s Rushworth
11.00am Eucharist - Christ Church Murchison
8.45am Eucharist - St Luke’s Dookie
5.30pm Evening Prayer
HOME