Richard's Ramblings

We haven’t got round yet to watching one of our Christmas staple films, Love Actually. We shall! But we did watch A Christmas Carol on Sunday afternoon. More precisely, The Muppets Christmas Carol. I can’t imagine what Dickens would have made of it. Did you know that Dickens started a novel, or rather a magazine instalment, because that was how novelists of the time eventually produced the finished article, without having much of an idea of how it would end? You would think that a plot diagram would be an essential part of writing, but Dickens broke the rule and it doesn’t seem to have done him any harm. The real Christmas story is on the face of it a plot beginning. Except that when the Word became flesh, the story of salvation had already begun, outside of time. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” Our part in the story had ...

You’ve probably heard the term, Service of Closure, in the Uniting Church context. It doesn’t relate to catharsis for a traumatic experience – although it might, for some unfortunate people! It’s merely a church liturgy to mark the end of a ministry placement, the counterpoint to the original induction or commissioning. When I left the Wesley Hospital, the then General Manager (now CEO of the Mater, Townsville, small world) said that I was “Always singing or humming”. My chaplain colleagues, particularly our catholic chaplain with whom I shared an office, concurred. So did some of the nurse managers. I’m not sure that it was always a fond memory, it must have got on their nerves sometimes. But here’s the thing: I didn’t know that I was doing it. Fast forward to the past couple of weeks. Among the new sounds in my implanted left ear (“Oh no, he’s not still going on about his cochlear implant!”) has been a low humming. I identified it a few days ago – it’s me, humming to myself. I was mo...

  I’ve put a couple of Stable on the Streets stars either side of my rear number plate. The last time that I had anything on my car identifying me as a Christian, at Dayboro, I inherited magnetic signs from my predecessor which carried our service times. One fell off along a country lane, and rather than retrace my route to find it, I took off the other one, too, because it was inhibiting my driving habits. That is, I couldn’t shout at visiting Victorians for driving too slowly, or try to out-accelerate whoever was alongside me at traffic lights, while I sported signs declaring that Dayboro Uniting Church was a welcoming, family Christian community. When I first started driving, mumble mumble years ago, it was the custom for earnest young Christians to have a sticker in their back window, or on their bumper, declaring that Jesus Saves, or The Wages of Sin is Death, or, a few years later, the Fish symbol. I’m still wary of whoever is in front of me when I see that Fish, because my e...

Back from post-op sign-off by my ENT surgeon. Everything is fine, the wound has healed, stitches are self-dissolving, inside the ear canal is clear. Switch-on and activation of the external sound processor is tomorrow, Friday. Then my brain will receive sound from the left side for the first time for more than 25 years. It just has to learn how to understand it. That’s a 6 to 12 month job. But the best news from Dr Anderson was nothing directly to do with audiology, it was that I can wash my hair in the shower! I’ve been plugging the implanted ear with a wax plug and sporting a shower cap. 2½ weeks of unwashed hair. Eew. Meanwhile, my hearing-aid-assisted ear has been clogged up with wax. It’s a problem for hearing aid wearers, many of you will know. Although wax is a nuisance, it’s produced for all the right reasons, to protect the ear from a foreign intruder, in this case, the in-ear bit of the hearing aid. So I’ve been squirting anti-wax stuff into my ear for the past week, to loose...

I shouldn’t be sitting here at my Mac, promised the surgeon that I’d take it easy for a couple of weeks. But here I am, resplendent in a turban bandage covering Tuesday’s op wound, and unresplendent without a shirt so that my coronary artery bypass “zipper” is displayed for all to see. Except there’s only Leisa and the dog to see it. No pics, this is a family pew sheet. Ah, the dog. Yannie is our German Shepherd and she had a tumour cut out on Tuesday, the same day as my cochlear implant surgery. Poor Leisa had to toggle between the Mater, JCU Vet and working from home. Yannie is at my feet sporting a “cone of shame” to prevent her from licking her wound, and a couple of Leisa’s socks to prevent her from scratching it. We make a fine pair. I know why I look like a knife sharpening block, but Yannie doesn’t know why bits of her do. She just knows that her supposed carers took her to a disinfectant-smelling place where she gets jabbed every few months, but this time they went to town on ...

The Mater told me today what time I have to roll up on Tuesday (8am). The usual stuff about not eating after midnight (do I splurge on a big dinner on Monday, or a light supper?), only water after 6am. No alcohol for 24 hours before the op or 24 hours after an anaesthetic. Bring an overnight bag. Which in the old days (in this context, I’m not sure when the old days ended) for me would have included a bible. I have lots of bibles on my shelves and scattered around the house. Do you know, I don’t read any of them. Nor do I take one of them with me when I go to church or to hospital or visiting. But I always have a bible with me, something which didn’t even happen in the old days. That’s because I use a bible app on my phone and iPad, and on my iMac and laptop. More versions than Harry Potter, Greek and Hebrew side-by-side, listen to Hebrew pronunciation, spoiled for choice for commentary at the swipe of a screen or click of a mouse. “Ah”, you say, “but you can’t scribble in the margin o...

I think I’ve told you the story about Rev Peter Hobson coming into the Synod complex refectory wearing a Cowboys t-shirt, straight after Rev Garry Hardingham had asked me whether I was interested in Kirwan Uniting (would have been nice if he’d asked Kirwan Uniting if they were interested in me, but them’s the breaks). “Hey, Peter”, I said to him, “Are you from North Queensland, what do you know about Kirwan?” “Great church”, he replied, “my mum’s a member, and Peter Ireland led me to the Lord”. I thought of this episode when I had a Facebook message overnight from someone who had been in my youth group, mumble mumble (OK, forty) years ago. She had noticed my name pop up on mutual Friends’ walls, and wondered, is that youth leader Richard from ancient history? I’ve stayed in touch with one of my co-leaders from those distant days (she lives in France now, I’m taking a Zoom service at her church in a couple of weeks time), and a little while ago one of our (then young) people who has sta...