Richard's Ramblings

  As I type this, I’ve come back from Retreat a day early to take a wedding. It was my fifth North Queensland/Carpentaria Presbytery Retreat – doesn’t time fly! All but one of them have been at Cardwell, at a beachfront camping and caravan site. I love the place, the view from my room and the retreat common area (where we meet for morning communion, the morning’s keynote talk, share meals and fellowship) is awesome. Straight across to Hinchinbrook Island, from behind which the sun rises spectacularly. A couple of highlights: “How great thou art” being sung concurrently in Tongan, Samoan, Fijian, Vanuatuan, Korean and, of course, English, was one. And another was my introduction to a song which you all know, I expect, but I hadn’t heard it, John Williamson’s Give me a Home among the Gum Trees.     With actions   😊   “But when my mates all ask me, the place that I adore, I tell them right away … Give me a home among the gum trees …” So, I wrote of Cardwell, “I lo...

  If you inhabit the same social media universe as Leisa and me, you’ll know that in a few weeks time we shall be driving down to Toogoolwah, in the Brisbane Valley, to fetch a new German Shepherd Dog. She is a great-granddaughter of our late, beloved and missed, Yannie. Her name is Storm, or Kassaar Storm-followed-by-sire-and-dam to be exact, because that’s how the breeder (Kassaar GSDs) styles their pedigree names. We’re going to change her everyday name (can’t change a registered pedigree name) because Leisa doesn’t fancy shouting across a dog-park or beach, “Storm, come!” Passers-by might think that she’s a particularly inarticulate representative from the Bureau of Meteorology. And “Stormy” carries overtones of, well, you know. Leisa has been reading up on how to get a dog accustomed to a new name. Our new dog (I’ll get to her name in a sec) is 18 months old, still a teenager in doggie years, and she’ll adapt pretty quickly. We first went for “Miffy”, a contraction of Myfanywy...

Fourteen years ago tomorrow (if you read this online) or yesterday (if you’re reading in church), I became an Australian citizen. I don’t know why I waited so long to apply, perhaps the Permanent Resident stamp in my UK passport made it easy enough for me to swan in and out of the country for the first thirteen years of my new life. I had to take a test to demonstrate that I had assimilated. Lots of sports questions of course. I knew that Don Bradman had poisoned Phar Lap, and that Ron Barassi was the first Prime Minister after Federation. At length, I trotted off to Brisbane City Hall where Lord Mayor Campbell Newman did the magic, sealed with a patriotic, rousing rendition of the Seekers’ We Are Australian. Leisa watched on from the balcony, tears in her eyes as she considered that I was less at risk of deportation now. The other new Australians wore suits and ties, I sported a t-shirt bearing an unauthorised coat of arms where the kangaroo and emu were on fire. Leisa’s sister’s fami...

  Ergon pulled the plug, literally, for eight hours on Wednesday. At least this time it wasn’t mid 30s, so we didn’t need aircon (rather, the dog didn’t need aircon). There is a substation in the street, which needed some sort of maintenance or upgrade. So for several streets around, the neighbours and we were powerless. We’ve lived on acreage for so long, with tank rainwater which requires an electric pump, that I still worry that I can’t pour a glass of water or flush the loo, until I remember that we’re suburban-dwellers now. And that there isn’t a dam outside the kitchen window, providing (pump-fed) water to the animal troughs. Sunday is Pentecost, power from on high supplied to a powerless multi-cultural, multi-ethnic bunch. Sometimes, we forget with just what power we have been endued, from where it comes, and what it’s for. Faced with our mortality and its attendant weakness, we forget what St Paul urges: “I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and ...

A good mate in Perth, WA, has his birthday today. I sent him a greetings text, and posted on his Facebook Wall. Aside from Leisa’s family and a couple of her High School chums in Brisbane, our dearest friends in this hemisphere are in WA and New Zealand. As it happens, Leisa is in Brisbane this weekend and will catch up with one of those NZ friends who is guest lecturing at St Francis Theological College. And she’ll meet up with her oldest High School friend. For most of the time, we rely on Facebook and other cyber-channels of communication to stay in touch. While travelling to be with each other in person is expensive, and until recently was impossible because of the pandemic lockdown, it still brings incomparably more joy than digital chat. I was reminded of this when Peter Ireland sent an article by Philip Yancey, read it at  https://philipyancey.com/why-go-back , reinforcing that the best online services are a poor substitute for Real Life™ gathering together for worship and f...

  At Synod last weekend, I did something which I’ve never done before. (No, not annoyed the ecclesiocracy, I’ve done that before, Sheree confiscated my blue voting card this time to keep me out of trouble.) I ordered food online to be delivered to Alex Park (the Synod venue). Many of you will be old hands at this lark, but it was a novelty for me. You sign up to the delivery service, UberEats, Deliveroo, Doordash (I used Doordash), whoever, their app knows where you are from your phone or iPad’s GPS location server, and you are presented with the menus of nearby eateries, accompanied by tempting photos of pizza, curry, kebab, fish n’chips. I plumped for a boring Subway sandwich because I didn’t know how long hot food would stay hot during pick-up and delivery. Pay online, and a map pops up showing you where the delivery driver is, and how long before they get to 1) the eatery, and 2) you. I suppose one of the earliest food deliveries in the Bible is Genesis 22. Abraham is about to ...

  So, I endured periodontal torture this week, when half of my gum line was prodded and scraped at to try to ensure that my teeth stay anchored to my gums for the foreseeable future (which, at my age, might be all of my future before the Lord comes or takes me). The other half will be tortured in a couple of weeks or so. Custom has it that I weave this personal anecdote into a Ramble. OK, what does the bible have to say about teeth? Much is concerned with words dear to the hearts of those who think that the Gospel is about damning >99% of people for whom Christ died, to eternal damnation. Gnashing of teeth, and all that. But I go for the many instances in Song of Songs, eg ch6, “ Your  teeth  are like a flock of sheep coming up from the washing. Each has its twin, not one of them is missing.”  An almost identical phrase precedes it in ch4, both of them following an early chat-up line of mine to Leisa, “Your hair is as a flock of goats, cavorting down Mt Gilead”. Y...