Richard's Ramblings

  So today, as I type this, is Leisa’s and my wedding anniversary. It was a mad mad wedding weekend in 1990. I landed in Brisbane from UK on Friday morning, we went straight downtown to buy our rings (we had been apart, Leisa in Australia, me in UK, for months, this was our first ring-shopping opportunity.) Then to church to rehearse a solo, Bach’s “Jesu, Joy” with the organist, Leisa’s aunt, because I was to sing at Leisa’s sister’s wedding the next day, Saturday. Leisa in the meanwhile was doing what chief bridesmaids have to do to help her sister prepare. Then Saturday, her sister’s wedding. Then Sunday, our wedding - Leisa’s sister was matron of honour. Wednesday, we flew back to UK. Phew. We’re barely getting over it 32 years later. Now because we bought our rings in such a hurry, they never really fitted properly. Mine certainly didn’t. After my father died, I kept his wedding ring in a box. Then just a few years ago, since I’ve been at Kirwan, I thought to myself, I wonder i...

  “I urge, then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people — for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, and pleases God our Saviour, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:1-4 As a 5 year old (of course, as any child does when asked their age, I would have expressed it 5¾) I watched the Coronation on a flickering black and white television screen, no bigger than today’s mobile phones, contained within a wooden cabinet the size of a grandmother clock. So Queen Elizabeth has been a part of my background consciousness for pretty well all of my life. I never met her, nor even, like Sir Robert Menzies, saw “her passing by”. But my grammar school was founded by her illustrious forebear and namesake, she was Patron of my universities, she was “graciously pleased” to grant my Army and Royal Naval Reserve Commissi...

  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...