It is worthy only in sharing the delight of the wide array of books available in local street libraries. My neighbours clearly have very diverse reading habits. My neighbours are not shy in sharing their books with others.
Read this book for a laugh.
Some questions raise a laugh in their own right, like:
If a deaf man goes to court, is it still a hearing?
and
Is there another word for synonym?
Some questions raise a chuckle in the reader's answer, like:
Where an Englishman suggests that migratory birds fly upside down over France "because the wretched place isn't worth shitting on".
And, then:
If you see an endangered animal eating an endangered plant . . . what do you do?
Where a morris dancing enthusiast concludes that it is simply best to just go morris dancing.
The book also includes a letter from a gentleman Simon who took to the task of finding a new colour: Are there any colours that have not been discovered yet? Despite Simon's letter advising of the inclusion of the colour card of his aptly named discovery "Simon", the editor assures all readers that "Simon" was actually purple.
Simon would have been wise spending his time morris dancing!
The Sydney Rector drought has had some attention of late. However, on my reading of a book targeted at seeking men and women to put their hand to the ministry plough, "The Mission Before Us: Why Sydney Anglican Church Ministry?", I was led to an odd conclusion. Where the book
spoke of drought, I was instead drawn to think of plenty.
I had came to the book after recording, in another post, a rousting of a minister Steeleby a senior. The rousting put the Gospel in the centre of the drought solution.
But the wealth didn't go towards nutting out robust strategy; instead seemingly everyone was scurrying for drought-breaking solutions. There may be a senior interest in putting Gospel at centre, yet the Diocese, despite all its resources, does not seem to have a single central whiteboard; one that would facilitate a rugged brainstorming session. I even found a Western Australian chipping-in.
And, the pages of The Mission before Us revealed the risk of crowd-sourcing; an error
of countand the subtle mentions of the so-so nature of Mission 2020. Leite’s
rather thin reaction of what could be done (page 1) caused me to favour a Sydney Presbyterian’s alternate response.
Closing the book, I had an urge to consume writings of those who were resourced more like Lingiari. God often makes more from less. I turned from the rich Diocese’s plight and directed my sympathy towards aclergymanin COVID19 lockdown Melbourne and anothercleric in his first-world impoverished ministry circumstances.
The book has two redeeming qualities – Loane’s
fine 1983 address and the Walter/Flinderspairing. The former has
a fantastic exposition of John 3. The address caused me to think that all the
Diocese’s Rector drought problems have an internal response - the Diocese needing to dig deep enough to find that response. The latter presents as
a very worthy read as a set. Walter and Flinders perhaps benefitted from quick note sharing being
situated a cooee from each other on Sydney’s North Shore.
Where the book speaks of drought of clergy, it instead
strikes the reader for its drought of practice. One contributer scoredhalf
marks and Colgan,
early in the book seems to be channeling Lennon’s Imagine, with
his “sometimes”.
Colgan’s “sometimes” is depicted in this extract from
page 6:
"Sometimes as I sit in cafes or on the train into the city and see the people running around in their work, their study, their shopping, their sport, I feel for Sydney something of what Jesus felt......so many people lost here on our doorstep"
Which appeared to have a retort in Loane's address, page 29. The address tantalisingly roars:
Henry Varley, in 1872, turned to his friend D.L. Moody and said: "The world has yet to see what God can do with a man who has wholly surrendered himself to Him. We are not used more...because our surrender is so incomplete"
....Varley signaling from the grave: “Colgan,
your “sometimes” must be “always””, to wit:
"SometimesAlways as I sit in cafes and always when I sit on the train into the city and see the people running around in their work, their study, their shopping, their sport, I feel for Sydney what Jesus felt......so many people lost here on our doorstep"
Vincent Lingiari is honoured in a song by Gough Whitlam
Shalom,
Ozhamada
Note 1: As I understand it Mission 2020 started well
yet failed to meet all its numerous ambitions; a church planting/greenfield
sub-objective seemingly being the only solid outcome. COVID19 put to an end any
hope of Mission 2020 fulfilling during its token final year.
Note 2: To be fair to Leite, his extended response, on pages 32-33, to what could be done to resolve the drought looks more like Powell’s list. Yet, why
didn’t Leite offer the extended response as he opened the book?
As I
finished the last of the book (the earlier part of the review linked
here)….I could not help myself.
Error X,
pages 216 and 218: A single member of the New South Wales police force referred
to by the surname Blare, Blair or Blaire.
Error Y,
page 219: A dog that within three sentences is firstly named “Duchess” and then
answers to “Dutches”
Error Z,
page 245: A call for “Austrian justice” to be carried out in Australia.
And yet
among all those errors there was the (unforgivable-in-Australian-publishing?) error. On page 236: the
dating of Anzac
Day’s origins to Australian and New Zealand troops fighting in the year
1951. "1951" contains the reversal of 1 and 5 yet a good editor would have quickly made the change to 1915.
As last calendar year came to a conclusion I read a novel, The Last Ten Seconds, that was full of error. It was a crime novel. The best of the errors had the main character 'whispering determinedly'. That's like saying 'yelling passively' or 'singing silently'.
I enjoyed the novel. The novels worth is in its illustration of the importance of the river to the people of Parramatta. The author offers a valuable account of how the river was vital to both white settlers from England and the aboriginal Australians.
Where he crime novel's various errors were largely at the end of the novel, 'Parramatta River Talks' gets off to a good start on the front cover. For the by-line has one too many words:
Error 1; front cover, delete the word 'for': "The rich and involving saga of a river and the O'Grady family over for four generations".
And, the errors continue: Error 2; page 5, delete 'mean' and substitute in 'man': "The old mean looked at the river ..."
Error 3; page 8, misspelling of 'and': "After Arafura ad Colebee, had seen..."
Error 4; page 99, misspelling of 'inclined': "not that I am being racist but because of what was taken I am inclines to believe..."
Error 5; page 99, a dog which is firstly referred to as 'he' is then reduced to 'it': "The saw 'Jumper' the dog as he lay still and quietly behind the wall of the barn. As they looked closer, they realised it was not dead".
Error 6; page 99 from within the same text immediately above where "still and quietly" mixes an adjective and an adverb where two adjectives should have been used: "still and quiet".
Error 7 and 8; page 100 where 'guest' should be the plural 'guests' and a comma should follow 'children'. So: "The guest, including the children danced all night long" should be: "The guests, including the children, danced all night long".
I do not wish to list more than eight errors yet there is one sentence that warrants a mention. I'll leave my reader to spot and count the errors, from page 104:
"Without having announced to the family of the death, he just appeared, and without much preamble, told the family in a few words of the Cholera, deaths, asked to have the coffins buried at the family cemetery."
