Richard's Ramblings

In a synthesis of the Middle Ages and the 21st Century, I’m typing this on my iPad but with a pair of candles illuminating the keyboard, which isn’t backlit. Those poor monk scribes didn’t only wreck their eyesight when they produced gorgeous illuminated manuscripts, they also worked themselves to an earlier than necessary death by not getting enough sleep. (If you haven’t already seen the Book of Kells in Dublin’s Trinity College, and you have a European trip in mind, include it in your itinerary. Evensong in Trinity Chapel is pretty special, too). I don’t get many colds, at least I haven’t since I moved to Australia, but when I do, they’re stonkers. Classic man-flu. And nurse Leisa (have I told you this in a previous Rambling? Sounds familiar) fixes it with her patent hot whisky toddy (formula available upon request). That toddy is so good that I feign illness for another night just so that I can have an extra dispensed. Its efficacy (remember Scaffold’s Lily the Pink? “Most effic...

Rev Michelle Cullen is much more organised than I am. For example, she has sent me the names and contact details of all of the folk who will look after the services at Mossman and Port Douglas in a couple of weeks’ time, so that I can let them know what are my scripture readings and theme.  (Because, if you didn’t know, Michelle and I are swapping pulpits for that Sunday, 11 August, each of us having been on Retreat at Cardwell in the week leading up to it,, she south to KUC, me north to  her preaching-hang-outs). Normally, as our musos will tell you with accompanying eye-rolls, I don’t even know what I’m preaching on the following Sunday, leave alone in two weeks, but I thought that I’d better not let the Mossman/Port Douglas side down,  and I discovered that Hebrews 11 is the set epistle, you know, “ … by faith so-and-so did such-and-such … “ (Come on, look it up ). Now it happens that a tad over eleven years ago, I became a citizen of this absolutely gorgeous countr...

Three things happened within a short space of time this week. I learned that a friend has been hospitalised, a wise old Anglican priest who told me when I was appointed to my first parish, “Just love ‘em” (he wasn’t so old then, obviously). That pointed me to 1 John 4 vv7 - 21 (“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God”  -  but read the whole passage). And then Leisa sent me a link to our beloved Garrison Keillor  -  http://www.garrisonkeillor.com/running-into-stan-on-sunday/   -  “To change the world, you must start out by loving it”. Kirwan Uniting sisters and brothers, this blog is read by folk who aren’t familiar with our services, so I’m going to tell them about one of our weird (not really weird, it’s very lovely) practices.  The first Sunday (just over a year ago now) I turned up at a KUC service, after the benediction, everyone suddenly stood up in a circle and held hands. I thought, uh uh, they’re going to do the hokey...

I’ve joined a gym. After all, I need to get fit and stay fit for Leisa and you all. I had a look at Jetts over the road from the manse, but a) it’s a bit pricey, and b) it’s full of young supermen and wonderwomen, dressed in designer-gym-gear, and who seem to be heaving kiloton weights without breaking a sweat or getting a manicured eyelash out of place. By contrast, Aitkenvale PCYC has special (read “cheap”) prices for old geezers, and the predominant dress code is op shop. There is a problem, in that I haven’t got the foggiest how any of their groovy exercise machines work. A spiritual “gym” can be intimidating, too.  Paul tells Timothy (2 Timothy 2:15)  “   Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth”. But many of us see the spiritual giants about the place, and think that we can never attain their level of theological knowledge or personal holiness of life, and we’re p...

I shout at my computer. Perhaps you do, too. It’s usually when I’m trying to fill in a badly designed online form on an unresponsive site. Of course, the computer doesn’t hear me (well, it does nowadays with Siri and Alexa, but one hopes that they don’t let on). More to the point, the unhelpful airline or government site doesn’t hear me, and they’re the folk who should be getting their digital systems right. At home (Cedar Creek home for a few more weeks), Yannie (pronounced Yarnie, you’ll meet her soon), our German Shepherd, comes straight over to me while I’m screaming into the cyber-void and nuzzles my elbow to say, in her non-verbal doggie lingo, “It’s alright, not worth getting worked up about, I love you even if Coles Flybuys (or whoever) doesn’t.” The compiler of Proverbs (15:1) tells us that a soft answer turns away wrath. Perhaps nuzzling our neighbour’s or a loved one’s or a workmate’s or a fellow church member’s elbow wouldn’t be a good idea, but we can let them...

You know those social media quizzes which show a photo of an item from the 1950s (or a bit later or earlier), and ask “‘Like’ if you remember what this is”?  One recently had a sort of small inverted tin just to the left of a clutch pedal. I’m sad to say that I recognised it straightaway as the foot-operated switch to dip your headlight main beam. I think the last car I had with that switch was a 1965 minivan. And it came to mind when the passenger side low beam bulb went on Leisa’s car while I was down last week. Our property is at the end of a 9km long winding (cue the Beatles)  unlit lane, so you need good lights on a car. With a dip bulb out, oncoming vehicles might think you’re a motorbike. But with high beam on, oncoming vehicles are dazzled. You see, car lights are not only to help you see the road but also to help other motorists see you. Straight after the Beatitudes in Matthew 5, Jesus tells his disciples (vv14 - 16) “You are the light of the world. A town built...

A break from the parish pew sheet rambling. I have a slim Les Murray volume (The Daylight Moon), but I need to revisit it and acquire a complete works. https://hughosb.com/2019/06/18/they-pretend-not-to-notice/