Richard's Ramblings

Our fellow shut-ins are coming up with all sorts of diversions to keep themselves sane during lockdown. Many are learning a new language, or a musical instrument. I was all for taking up the bagpipe, but Leisa pointed out that among our near neighbours are some church members. We don’t want them to move to Belgian Gardens just to escape the wail of Amazing Grace. They might not travel all the way to KUC after restrictions end. Jigsaws are a common pastime. You buy, or are given, a great big box with a lovely picture on the outside. And then you open it to find hundreds of strange little shapes which don’t look as if they could have anything to do with the beautiful scene on the box. But with care and perseverance, qualities entirely lacking from my personality, you discover how those strange shapes fit together to form a gorgeous panorama, exactly like the picture on the box. We’re like a jigsaw at KUC, except someone – something – has taken the completed picture apart and scattered...

Do you remember the Wombles? Underground, overground, Wombling free The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we Making good use of the things that we find Things that the everyday folks leave behind. I’ve been reading about unexpected “leavings behind”, scriptures dumped on an Egptian refuse tip 300km or so south of Alexandria, during the first few centuries of the Christian Era. You can read the academic paper for yourself, if you’re into that sort of thing: https://religion.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/Luijendijk-Sacred-Scriptures-as-Trash-VC.pdf No-one’s too sure why they were dumped, although one theory is that scribes discarded papyrii which had the ancient equivalent of our typos. Whatever, they were preserved under desert sand until the late 19thC when researchers were alerted to them, and began to retrieve and study them. Some were gnostic, or not incorporated into what is now our accepted canon, but some were variants of canonical Gospels and Apostolic letters. All hav...

First, this week’s online service is provided by the Moderator, Rev David Baker. I’ll send the link out on Saturday so that you can watch from home church on Sunday morning (or whenever you like, one of the silver linings of this novel way of worshipping). And I’ll take DVDs round to internetless folk. On this topic of online stuff, I have a number of Zoomy meetings during the week. Some with Presbytery, some with Elders and CoM, with the Pastoral Care group, with a couple of other groups which I belong to. And Thursday morning sees a Zoom version of what the City’s ministers used to do in Real Life™ at Macca’s, an early prayer meeting.  Forgetting to mute my mike can be embarrassing. The dog barks her head off at a sensitive point in someone’s earnest prayer. Leisa brings me in a coffee (at which I forget to suspend video), and I thank her profusely and give a running commentary on my colleagues, including, for the AoG,   their distinctive style of extemporaneous prayer....

In two weeks, it will be Easter. Among the bible texts that we turn to, is Job 19:25, “I know that my Redeemer lives”. We might even dig out the Messiah CD or .mp3 which we played during the Christmas season, fast forwarding to the lovely soprano aria. But there’s more to Job’s story than his firm assurance that “in my flesh I shall see God”. The internet abbreviation, TL:DR stands for “Too long, don’t read” (or “didn’t read”).  Lots of us append that to the first 18 chapters of Job, particularly chapters 1 and 2 when Satan tells God that, first, Job only trusts Him because he (Job) is well off, and then, after Job loses all of his wealth and family, that second, Job still trusts God because he has his health. In the story, one of the oldest parts of the Hebrew bible, God allows Satan to take away Job’s health, too. We are in a better position, unfortunately, to have insight into Job’s predicament as we isolate ourselves for self-protection and community protection for the dur...

Like most churches across the world in countries where novel coronavirus is pandemic, Kirwan Uniting Church has taken baby steps in video-casting a service. Our first video is too large to post as a blog, but here is its URL. I’ll post a link as new services are recorded. Make yourself comfortable! https://vimeo.com/399569139

Well, what has been on the cards for a couple of weeks has come to pass, and our “In church” services are cancelled for an indefinite time. You might have heard cheerful folk looking on the bright side, and pointing out that: When Shakespeare was quarantined at home because of a plague outbreak, he wrote King Lear. And, When Cambridge University was closed in the 1700s because of another plague outbreak, Isaac Newton had to work from home and that was why he was in his garden when an apple fell on him and he propounded the Law of Gravity. And, When the Pevensie children were stuck in their evacuation home during WWII, they found a secret, magical wardrobe, which led them to talking animals who joined them in the fight against an evil witch, and they reigned for many years with a divine Lion in His kingdom. All in the space of a morning. Paul ministered primarily in the synagogue when he first came to Ephesus in Acts 19. However, he soon faced opposition which forced him...

Reading around the Bible for passages to complement Matthew’s and Luke’s “Give us today (or give us each day) our daily bread”, I couldn’t miss Exodus 16 and the institution of manna, or daily bread, for the wandering Children of Israel. Moses kicks off his explanation to the moaning Israelites that OK, God will provide food at both ends of the day: ‘In the evening you will know that it was the  Lord  who brought you out of Egypt, and in the morning you will see the glory of the  Lord’. I love this congregation, and Leisa and I like Townsville more and more as time passes and our familiarity with all that it has to offer, grows. But one thing I miss from a country town is taking the ANZAC Day services, the Dawn Service and the later Parade Service. It was a great privilege for a pom soldier to be able to honour Australian and New Zealand sailors, soldiers and airmen. A piper’s lament followed by the bugle’s haunting Last Post sends shivers down my spine. And...