Chapter 6: Mothering Sunday, Lent IV, Sunday 10th March 2013

It always strikes me as slightly ironic that Mothering Sunday and Simnel Cake consumption occur near the end of the penitential season of Lent. Just as we remember how Mary's Son and our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, prepared to enter Jerusalem so we could be saved, here we are taking a break, saying "thanks, Mum", and feasting on a fruity cake adorned with symbolic apostolic eggs. Meanwhile, the supermarkets are already doing a roaring trade in hot cross buns. Chronological concatenation! No wonder non-Christians get confused about the Church. I guess one of the tasks of ministry today is to explain and, if possible, disentangle, this apparent confusion.

My Anglican ministry course via St Marks National Theological Centre (Canberra) came online this week, with a swag of assignments and readings. Thanks to helpful Church friends and colleagues, I'm well on the way with organizing my ministry Field Placement at St James King Street (that's in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, for overseas readers).

Meanwhile, at St James Hall, Sydney, the Rev. Dean Andrew Sempell's Thursday Lenten Group has been busily exploring a variety of personal and communal life journeys, all with our ultimate end (i.e. God) in mind, and the adventurous and provocative 2013 St James Institute series of lectures and seminars is under way. Last Sunday (3rd March 2013) Rev. Martin Davies led a lively poetry reading seminar called "Anticipating World Poetry Day". Poetry-lovers, clergy, musicians and poets read and discussed original and favorite poems on themes that included the Australian landscape, love, religion, medical history, childhood, and more. Innovation abounded. Alistair Nelson recited Donne beautifully from memory, Sue Mackenzie gave a multimedia presentation of her landscape poetry, Rev. Sempell read a soliloquy on ordination candidature, and John Bunyan presented his completed poetry book "75 Sonnets", and read selections. The St James Institute series is an excellent opportunity to explore current Church issues, study scripture in depth, have your say, and develop creative projects.

Networking at St James is full of pleasant surprises. Last month I was thrilled to meet, through a hospitable gathering at Christine Cheetham's, two "Adelaide girls" of my generation - Joan Gibb and Rosemary White, both now parishioners of St James. We shared happy childhood memories of Adelaide's famous John Martin's Christmas Parade, Church worship, and beach frolics. In the 1960s I was at St Ann's University College, studying for my Arts degree in English and History, singing for Morning Prayer at St Peter's Cathedral with Michael Betts, Andrew Mander-Jones, Derek Van Dissel and Margaret Cheesman (among others), and writing mysteriously metaphysical poems at the Creative Writing Group with John Healey, Helen Gregson and Charles Kaiser. That was the era of Max Harris and the Ern O'Malley poetry hoax - when two larrikin Aussie tricksters fooled the literary establishment into lauding "poetry" concocted from randomly selected dictionary words.

It so happens that Adelaide will be well represented at St James this Easter. I'm looking forward to hearing the Rev. Steven Ogden from Adelaide's St Peter's Anglican Cathedral, preach at St James.