EPIPHANY
6 January 2013
Graphics and cartoons & liturgical material appear only in the printed version
THREE WISE QUEENSLAND MEN
In a small outback Queensland town, where the local, rustic drawl is lazier than a full bellied goanna sunning itself on a bare branch, there was a “Nativity Scene” that clearly showed that exceptional skill and talent had gone into creating it. One small feature was puzzling though. The three wise men were wearing firemen’s helmets. A query about this to a lady behind the counter of a “Quik Stop” on the edge of town elicited the following response: “Youse stupid Victorians never did read the Bable!” When I assured her that indeed I did and was in fact an Anglican priest, she jerked her Bible from behind the counter, riffled through its pages and finally jabbed her finger close to the beginning of St Matthew’s Gospel. Sticking it in my face she said “See! It says right ‘ere, the three wise men came from afar.”
THIS AND THAT (66)
Andrew Neaum
Lying on our bed in the Rectory and looking out of the window is very beautiful, for we have a green and leafy garden. It is as if we look out on to the world through the eyes of Rowan Williams, his dense and feral eyebrows represented by a wisteria vine that heavily fringes the window’s top. Through greenness to greenness, lovely.
The best of Christmas cakes
For my birthday in November Dulcie Ackland made me a splendid fruitcake. Knowing my love of glacé cherries she studded the cake with them within and on top. Instead of eating it immediately we kept it for Christmas and covered it with homemade walnut marzipan, made from our own homegrown walnuts. We put a layer in its middle to make it the very best and richest Christmas cake we have ever tasted. Thank you Dulcie.
I have been falling asleep at my keyboard again. I have just awoken with a start on the fifteenth line of zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’s. My left hand shows a remarkable onomatopoeic ability to illustrate my somnolent condition perfectly, “zzzzz” indeed. So farewell for a while. I will wake myself up by auguring a hole for ashes to be laid gently to rest in our Memorial Garden soon. Then I will bike out to see a parishioner who has been notably absent from church for a long time, an exercise requiring some tact. I wouldn’t want to be perceived as harassing anyone, though no matter how subtle I am, when all has been said and done, harassment of a sort it probably is.
Beserk pumpkins
It is good to be eating our own vegetables again. The first aubergine found its way into a cheesy, garlicky dish of our own tomatoes, coriander, garlic, beans and courgettes yesterday. Our maize is now seven feet high and not yet even flowering yet and a self-sown pumpkin has gone berserk. Far too large for a trellis that we have guided it up, it is now extending an arm along a beam we have stretched across our Rowan Williams window. The view from our bedroom will soon be of the underside of sun-soaked pumpkin leaves, hopefully alleviated by the sight of its great fruit supported individually by Heath-Robinsonesque contraptions of straps, gussets and slings designed to prevent their weight bringing down the north wall of the Rectory.
RETURN TO
TRISTAN DA CUNHA (1)
The remotest inhabited place on earth is Tristan da Cunha. I lived there from 1952 to 1956, aged seven to nearly eleven. My father was Chaplain on the Island for three and a half years and he, my mother, sister, brother and I all loved it. It is the sort of place that you never forget, that grabs hold of your imagination and haunts you ever afterwards. I have longed to revisit the island ever since I left it. Last year, with Diana, I finally found my way back. One of my lifetime goals achieved at last. I diarised our visit and so for the next month or too I will be editing up and toning down that diary into some sort of coherent narrative, attempting to order and make sense of our visit as well as to honour the place and its people.
The Island is situated almost plumb in the middle of the South Atlantic Ocean on the edge of the “Roaring Forties”. It is approximately 1,750 miles from Cape Town, 2,088 miles from South America, 1,350 miles from St Helena and 2,550 miles from the Falkland islands. It is in fact one of several islands, the largest island in a small archipelago consisting of the uninhabited Nightingale Islands as well as the wildlife reserves of Inaccessible Island and Gough Island. Tristan is roughly circular, about 7 miles across, with an area of 37.8 square miles. Its permanent population is about 267.
As well as being the most isolated inhabited place on earth it is also, at first and close sight, forbidding and grim, all mountain, cliffs, ravines, gulches and wild ocean. From a distance out to sea, however, it is thrilling and exquisite, a near perfect, classic volcanic peak, often snow capped and even more frequently cloud capped. The cone is scored by deep gulches radiating out in all directions carved by the frequent rain, but sea erosion is even more drastic and so for most of the island’s perimeter the slope of the cone has been eaten away by a relentless ocean to form forbidding two thousand foot base cliffs that soar up from very narrow stone or black sand beaches.
Its one little human settlement, the village “Edinburgh of the Seven Seas”, has an average of 67 inches of rain a year and the wind rarely ceases to blow. Yet my childhood memories are bathed more in sunshine than gloom and even our recent three and a half weeks, wet and windy though they were for most of the time, are in no way recalled as at all dark and inhospitable.
The people live on a half to one mile wide, rolling and verdant strip of land along the north west coast possiblyt six miles in length, sandwiched between mighty mountain and turbulent ocean. Sublimity is ordinary, the ordinary sublime.
The fine South African poet Roy Campbell wrote a long and impressive poem entitled Tristan da Cunha. In it the island becomes a symbol of his own isolation and alienation from colonial society:
Exiled like you and severed from my race
By the cold ocean of my own disdain,
Do I not freeze in such a wintry space,
Do I not travel through a storm as vast
And rise at times, victorious from the main,
To fly the sunrise at my shattered mast
Getting to the island is not at all easy. We had been booked on the SA Agulhas for two years, not realising that this vessel had been replaced by a brand new SA Agulhas II. This vessel was completed only in the year we were due to sail, having been commissioned by the South African Government from a firm in Finland at a cost of 163 million Australian dollars. While our trip was not its maiden voyage, it was its first to Tristan and Gough Island, and being a state of the art Research and Survey ship as well as a Tanker, Ice-breaker, Cargo and Passenger ship, berths were much in demand by scientific folk, the ship’s owner being the South African Department of Environmental Affairs. Three weeks before our date of sailing from Cape Town we were informed that our berths were no longer available. More scientific personnel than originally envisaged needed berths and so the ten allocated to the likes of us had been summarily withdrawn. Before we had confirmed a far less satisfactory alternative berth on a small cargo ship we were squeezed on to the Agulhas II after all.
There is no airport on the island and no regular passenger ships. If the annual Agulhas trip cannot be caught, then either the small chartered island supply ship, at present The Baltic Trader, or one of the Fishing Company ships have to suffice. The Agulhas trip allows a very convenient three weeks on the island. After it has deposited personnel on Tristan it heads for Gough Island, three hundred miles away, to supply or replace the researchers and meteorological officers there, as well as to participate in research.
Tuesday September 4th 2012
....... We made our way to Cape Town’s “East Wharf” and with no difficulty at all gained entrance to the dockside in the car. Like my father I love docks, though they are nowhere near as interesting nowadays as they were before the advent of containerisation. Whenever my father found himself in a city with a port, he would take us all off to look around and to goggle at great chutes filling holds with wheat or other grains, and lanky cranes loading pallets of pig iron, or cars or whatever into capacious holds.
We made our way on board the Agulhas with my sister Sue and Bob her husband. Having signed in we waited for the purser to turn up. Martin was his name, an amiable fellow with usually a faintly harassed and puzzled look upon his face. He found our names on his computer and took our passports for processing. With some reservations we left them with him and he told us that we should board at any time after 10.00am on Thursday. We then had a quick look over the boat before leaving. It had its front hold open as some powerful little cranes, all a part of the ship’s equipment, loaded stuff into the hold, which was not a deep one for the ship’s draft appears to be relatively shallow, possibly to facilitate ice-breaking. We couldn’t get into the cabins but looked over with approval one of two lounge bars, looking out over the front deck and bow. The ship is obviously a functional and working vessel, rather than a touristy passenger ship. It is well appointed though and in its own way beautiful and inspiring. It made my sister Sue very envious of us. There appears to be no superfluous comfort or concessions to luxury. The stairwells were not carpeted, nor all of the corridors, hard-wearing linoleum instead, and all the handrails of stairways are stainless steel. The great doors out to the deck are heavy and require strength to open and shut and all the decks are green-painted, rough textured metal not caulked wood. A fascinating vessel.
Coincidentally Bob and Sue’s next door neighbour’s father used to be the captain of a ship plying regularly to Tristan and is married to an islander. He too will be on the ship and we met him coming off as we boarded.
Friday 7 September, 2012 7.55pm
(on board SA Agulhas)
I lie on the bunk of cabin number 6136 on the Agulhas. We arrived at about half past ten with no fuss, parked the car near the gangway, unloaded the suitcases and I struggled up the gangway with them, depositing them on the deck, there being lots of security people and others around. I then descended the steps for a couple of photos taken by Bob of Diana and me. We then boarded and waved goodbye to the good Bedinghams who drove off as we turned our attention to finding our cabin, guided there by a fellow who took one of the big bags off me. The cabin has a biggish oblong window rather than a porthole and we are fairly high up, deck 6. There are two beds separated by a fair sized desk with four plugs above it and a monitor for I know not what. There is also a three person settee as well as our own en suite basin, toilet and shower. It is as good a cabin as I have ever travelled in. We dumped our stuff and went outside to the deck to enjoy what we presumed would be our imminent departure. However, we were destined to leave late.
We talked a fair bit to a very friendly fellow passenger called Linda who informed us that her husband is the Executive Officer of the Island and loves it. She is making her first voyage to see him there and by profession is a Labour Lawyer. She wouldn’t mind going to live for a while on the island, but no cats are allowed there, even doctored ones, and she loves her cats. Interested in the mystical properties of rocks as well as cats, and a polisher of stones to make ornaments and trinkets, she has a good sense of humour, a strong South African accent and a deep appreciation of wine.
We were initially told through the loudspeakers that at 1.00pm we would be briefed in the ship’s 100 seat auditorium, but this was postponed, partly because there were a whole lot of speeches on the wharf to do with this being the first Gough and Tristan trip of the new ship, and there is a team of scientists of one sort or another heading to Gough, eight of them to spend thirteen months there, one with special medical qualifications, this being the 58th contingent. So speechifying and even the South African National Anthem, sung by two African fellows with splendid tenor voices were all part of an official send off. There is also something not right with one of the cranes and someone has been flown in from Norway to fix it. So we have left port and are anchored in the Bay until 9.00pm when we are due to sail.
Immigration was a formality, we all assembled in the auditorium where our passports, with a photo of the main page, were tabled and everyone was called up by name, names were matched to faces, and that was that. No interrogation at all.
It is a fascinating ship and we feel hugely privileged to be on it. I have already explored it pretty thoroughly. There are two helicopters in two hangars behind a large landing pad and about eight technicians, pilots or whatever in a uniform of their own. We talked to a “retired” psychiatrist and his wife, going to investigate any possible problems on the island, for the first time ever, having done the same over some time, for St Helena. A lovely and intelligent couple. There is also an RC priest as well as a Dutch Reformed Church Chaplain to the Gough Island mob. He will be running a little service on Sunday relieving me of any obligations I am pleased to say, though he has invited me to say a prayer or some such thing.
FOR THE DIARY
Jan 19 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8am Macedonian “Baptism of Jesus”
Jan 26 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Garden Working Bee
Feb 2 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Women’s Breakfast
Feb 3 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7pm Cologne Chamber Orchestr
Feb 24 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Katandra AGM
Feb 12 Tue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6pm Pancake Party
Feb 13 Wed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ash Wednesday & AGM
March 3 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dookie AGM
March 10 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Mothering Sunday & Breakfast
March 31 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Easter Sunday
May 23 Thu. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4pm Raffle sub Committee Roz’s Room
June 2 Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patronal Festival
June 13 Thur. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4pm Fair Planning Group Roz’s Room
Oct 19 Sat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Parish Fair
FROM THE REGISTERS
Birthdays:
Bev Martin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Jan
Anniversary:
Tiffany & Scott Chandler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12 Jan
MACEDONIAN CHRISTMAS
Monday 7 January 2012 8.00am
Our Macedonian family celebrate their Christmas on Monday at 8.00am. If you would like to join them please do so, you will be most welcome. It is an opportunity to celebrate Christ’s Nativity without the faintest suspicion of secular commercialism.
MACEDONIAN BAPTISM OF JESUS
Saturday 19 January 2012 8.00am
This is an unusual celebration that includes an auction of Icons and the blessing of water outside. You will be welcome to this most interesting celebration too.
SPLENDID CONCERT
Sunday 3 February 2013 at 7.00 pm
St Augustine’s Church
A couple of years ago, as a wild storm raged outside, the Chamber Philharmonia Orchestra of Cologne visited us here at St Augustine’s presenting a concert of splendid music with astonishing vigour and expertise. They return on the 3rd of February to play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, J S Bach’s Suite No 2 in B minor for Flute and Orchestra BWV 1067, Tchaikovsky’s “Andante Cantabile” for Violoncello and Orchestra, Mozart’s Divertimento in B Flat Major KV 137 and Paganini’s “La Campanella” for Violin and Orchestra. This will be a memorable concert!
THE ENNEAGRAM AND SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
Fr Rob Whalley plans is to run a study group on the Enneagram and Spritual Direction in 2013 and is asking for expressions of interest. The Enneagram is a psycho-spiritual tool involving 9 personality types. We studied the Enneagram this year in EfM and also at the lay retreat in April. It is something I (Helen) have been interested in for years and found very useful for my own development, as well as in understanding other people.
The study group is advertised in the December Advocate – the location and dates will depend on interest. You can either contact Fr Rob or, if you have questions about the Enneagram to help you decide whether you’d like to join the group, you can also talk to Helen.
GRIEF SUPPORT: “MOVING ON”
At the very successful “Grief Support” Christmas party several folk indicated a desire to return once more to monthly meetings. So in early February we will crank up and purr into life once more. Watch this space.
PLATES FROM THE NARTHEX
There is a collection of people’s plates waiting to be claimed. They were kindly brought to us laden with goodies for a variety of parish functions and are now emptied and washed. Please help yourself to yours.
A B M BOXES
Anyone with an ABM box to be emptied please bring it to Church or to the Parish Office. We are still needing someone in our parish to look after ABM and its needs. A volunteer please.
READINGS NEXT SUNDAY 13 January
Isaiah 431-7, Psalm 29, Acts 814-17 (8.30 only)
REQUESTS FOR PRAYER
Hilary & Alan Akers, Liam Bognar, Nola Brewer, Victoria Heenan, Bruce Hodgson & family, Katherine Holt, Dos King, Elsie Lieschke,, Bob & June McKellar, Menique Richards with Shylah & Mitchel, Ray, Simon & Cheryl & Joy.
Rest in Peace: Joyce Clarke
Anniversaries:Doris Woodcock, Lesley Rankin, Rebecca Arthur (6 Jan), Raymond Eldridge (7 Jan), Dorothy Young, Frances McKendry, Cathryn Lawrence, Lukas Price (8 Jan), Edith Akers, Annie McPhail (9 Jan),Jillian Bradford, Emily Pleming, Patricia O’Dea (11 Jan)Leslie Gribble, George Watkins, Susan Neff, Rita Meyer (12).
Duties for Sunday 6 January
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heather Pearson, Bev Condon
Intercessor 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Victoria heenan
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Horder, Beth, Soibhan,
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Joe Pearson, Bev Condon
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gwyn & Merv Cowland
Welcomer 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dulcie Ackland, Beryl Goodfellow
Welcome Table 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bev Reither
Reader 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Chris Evans
Intercessor 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chris Jones
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Volunteers
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jenny Pleming
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beryl Black, John Pleming
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gloria Wayman, Irene Crawford
Welcome Table 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Projector 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Sandra Simonis
Children’s Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Diana
Mowing Jan 12. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Morn Mitchelmore, Alan Jeffery
Altar Linen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Monday Office 7 Jan. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Rosemary Moore, Jeanette Smith
Duties for Sunday 13 January
Readers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Wellman, Gwyn Cowland
Intercessor 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bev Condon
Servers 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Beth, Soibhan, Michelle,
Euc. Assts 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Barbara Schier, John Horder
Sidespeople 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Norm Mitchelmore, Trevor Batey
Welcomer 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Di Gribble, Gavin Gall
Welcome Table 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Tea 8.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Val Bambrook
Reader 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan McCann
Intercessor 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mary Pearson
Servers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Volunteers
Euc. Assts 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jenny Pleming
Sidespeople 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .John Pleming, Robert Gilbert
Welcomers 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sandra Simonis, Frank Steen
Welcome Table 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dorothy Cook
Projector 10.30. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Karina Black
Children’s Church. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Suzanne Lear
Mowing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .none
Monday Office 31 Dec. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Jenny Mintern, Jan Phillips
THIS WEEK IN THE PARISH
Sunday 6 January
2.00pm Sudanese Church Service
5.30pm Evening Prayer- Lady Chapel
Monday 7 January
8.00am Orthodox Christmas
5.00pm Evening Prayer
Tuesday 8 January
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.00pm Evening Prayer
Wednesday 9 January
7.45am Mattins - Lady Chapel
10.00am Eucharist- St Augustine’s
NO VESTRY
5.00pm Evening Prayer
Thursday 10 January William Laud
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
5.30pm Choir Practice
Friday 11 January
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist - Lady Chapel
8.30am Narthex Breakfast
5.00pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel
Saturday 12 January
7.45am Mattins & Eucharist
6.00pm Vigil Eucharist
Sunday 13 January Baptism of our Lord
8.30am Sung Eucharist - St Augustine’s
10.30am Eucharist & Children’s Church- St Augustine’s
8.45am Eucharist - St Luke’s Dookie
10.30am Eucharist - St Mary’s Katandra
9.00am Local -St Paul’s Rushworth
11.00am Local - Christ Church Murchison
5.30pm Evening Prayer - Lady Chapel