Richard's Ramblings

Late Week Wander

T his has been a sensory week for me. The sense of sight on Monday at Specsavers, of taste on Tuesday at the dentist, and of hearing on Wednesday at my ENT surgeon.  Some of you know the story about sight overlapping with sound at Specsavers. Sitting in a (socially-distanced) waiting area, a young girl came out of her office and told me what I already knew, “Your hearing aid is whistling”. “Yes”, I said, “it’s badly fitting, it’s either whistle or nothing”. “I can fix that”, she replied, and she did. She lengthened the tube between the in-ear bit and the behind-the-ear bit, bent it into a different shape, and hey presto, no whistling. The dentist came up with what dentists are good at, a treatment plan which will cost more than my car’s worth unless BUPA come to the party. And the ENT surgeon offered the quote of the week: “You’re young” 😊 More above-the-neck stuff on Thursday, a haircut, and to round the week off, an MRI and CT on Friday to show the cochlear surgeon where my skul...

Online service There are some questions which invite a metaphysical response. Bertrand Russell, perhaps the pre-eminent English language philosopher of the 20thC, when he climbed into a London cab one day, got a cabbie’s stock conversation-starting line, “Wot’s it all abaht, then?” And expats the world over, as well as (comparatively) new Australians like me, are asked, “Where ya from?” (Then, when you answer “London”, a city of some 10M souls, your interlocutor exclaims “Oh, you must know X and Y, they were on our cruise last year, they’re from London”). "Where are you from?" "Where is your home?" "Who are your people?" We tell our stories to identify our origins. This is particularly poignant for me, I’m adopted, I had a very happy childhood indeed, but I can’t answer that ultimate genealogical question. Even if I suspect that I’m the rightful Duke of Westminster.   This reading from Genesis is also an origin story — the origin story of humankind, and it...

I had a stonking cold the weekend before last. Of course, my recovery was down to “… pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much ” as James writes in the KJV (5:16). Myrl Eddy would want us to add “and a righteous woman”, and she’d be right. But those fervent prayers availed even more because of righteous Leisa’s effectual administration before bed of a hot whisky toddy, which I fervently drank. Here’s the recipe:   100ml whisky Juice of a small lemon Tablespoon of honey Top up with boiling water   I knew that it was a cold, and not COVID-19, because I could smell and taste the ingredients. That recipe works every time, for a cold. The therapeutic mechanism is quite straightforward, it just helps you to sleep. And then a good night’s sleep works the real magic.   There are so many things keeping us from sleeping at the moment. Events in our own lives, in our church’s life, in political events in Australia and ...

I hope that my funeral is many years off yet. It needs to be, because the job of collating a few hundred pieces of music and booking performers will take me up to 2050, when I shall be 103, an age the significance of which I’ll tell you one day. Among my favourite hymns are Spafford’s It is Well with My Soul, JM Neale (tr) Christ is made the Sure Foundation, Winkworth (tr) Wake O Wake for Night is Flying, The Eagles Take it to the Limit – particularly great hymn that last one. If we guess that Eagles band members will predecease me (one has already), I’ll need to find a cover. Our nephew is 24, his band might not make it to 2050. They’re really Heavy Metal, anyway. As for choral music, there’s just too much to whittle down. But a must-have is Stanford Nunc Dimittis in G . Luke 2, the Song of Simeon, when the baby Jesus is presented to him in the Temple. “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation ..." Look...

As I type this on Thursday, it is Ascension Day.  It’s a public holiday in many European countries, including Germany where it is called, to the delight of English-speaking schoolboys and girls learning German,  Christi Himmelfahrt, Christ Heaven-going. Here’s what Luke has to say (Acts 1): … he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.” Some years ago, Leisa and I rented a holiday house on the Manly NSW beachfront for a dear friend’s wedding. Another family of dear friends, Americans, came over for the wedding and shared the house. Their then 3yo (graduated High School last month – aagh, we’re getting old) daughter said to us, ...

Lo, Vimeo now worketh, and you can watch and listen to a video as usual https://vimeo.com/420941727 And if that is unintelligible, here's the Thought-for-the-Evening: Twinkle twinkle, little star, I know precisely what you are: An incandescent ball of gas compressed into a solid mass. Pondering meandering, my mind turned to stars, specifically those which God suggested that Abraham should look at when he, Abraham, was doubting God’s promise that he would have a son and heirs.  Genesis 15, our reading: He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars —if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. There you go, I thought, let’s cheer ourselves up in lockdown by considering, along with the Psalmist, that He who made the moon and stars to govern the night; His love endures forever. And then I remembered that it’s been raining and overcast fo...