Hello Faith Pals,

Welcome to Friday.  What a sad week it has been.

I have included the addresses of Jean  and of Joy’s daughter Helen, (thank you, Janet) if anyone wants to contact family/send a card etc.  Janet has sent cards from Leighmoor UC.

I have included a reflection from Bill  as an attachment.

This is wonderful to watch!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw5KQMXDiM4 It is thought provoking…and uplifting too. I could base a sermon or two on it! It made me think of books, and stories. One person from Heatherton-Dingley had written in an email that at one time at work they were to nominate who they would be if they were to be a cartoon character. She chose Kermit the Frog I I thought that was a lovely choice-(I am rather partial to that green frog!) Who would you be? You can extend it any character from a story, or from real life. Whose shoes would you like to step into for a day? OR…if you would prefer a slightly different slant-if you could invite 3 people to dinner-who would you invite? (of course this wouldn’t be during lockdown…so travel for the invitee would not be a problem.) The person could be living, or have died. After you have made your choice, you may wish to write a sentence about why you chose that person/people. Stories. Books. We are people of stories, we ARE story! No one has lived the life you have lived, or had the same experiences. Look at your fingers-unique fingerprints! How can everyone who has ever lived have a different finger print? Mind boggling! Did you know that a zebra’s stripes are different too, like our fingerprints? Marty, the rather anxious zebra in the animation film Madagascar, asked this question: Zebras are generally thought to have white coats with black or brown stripes, because the stripes end at their bellies and the inner side of the legs, which are white. However, zebras have black skin under their whitecoats! 

Each species of zebra has a different general pattern of stripes. The Grevy’s zebra has very thin stripes. The mountain zebra has vertical stripes on its neck and torso, but horizontal stripes on its haunches. Some subspecies of plains zebras have brownish ‘shadow’ stripes between the black stripes.

It is believed that the zebra’s stripes work like camouflage.  When zebras stand together, it is harder for predators to determine how many zebras are in the group. The stripes may also make the zebra appear unattractive to smaller predators, such as bloodsucking horseflies, which can spread disease. In addition, the stripes may work as a natural sunscreen.

Isn’t God’s creation wonderful? Would we have been able to design such variety? The poet Shel Silverstein posed this question in a poem:

Zebra Question

I asked the zebra
Are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?
And the zebra asked me,
Or you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
Are you noisy with quiet times?
Or are you quiet with noisy times?
Are you happy with some sad days?
Or are you sad with some happy days?
Are you neat with some sloppy ways?
Or are you sloppy with some neat ways?
And on and on and on and on
And on and on he went.
I’ll never ask a zebra
About stripes
Again.

A few jokes: What’s orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot. I ate a clock yesterday, it was very time consuming. As I suspected, someone has been adding soil to my garden. The plot thickens. (I didn’t say they were good jokes!) Duncan Macleod, our of our Presbytery Ministers, included this poem in his email this week. I have included it for those who do not receive his emails:  From the Iona book, Sing but keep on walking, by

Jan Sutch Pickard

A time for panic and a time for hope, 
of urgency with much uncertainty, 
of waiting and impatience; 
a time of looking forward and a time for looking back, 
awareness of our mortality, 
with eagerness to celebrate new life. 
A time for prophecy 
and for practical preparations; 
a time for silence and a time for singing, 
a time for stillness and a time for travelling on; 
when plants die while seeds and corms store spring; 
when the safe and familiar give way to wonder. 
As migrating flocks cross our skies, 
constellations wheel with the turning year; 
the story of the seasons, 
the story of salvation – 
Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, Pentecost – 
the song never ends. 
A time of too many expectations, 
and a time of deep expectancy; 
a time for being human together, 
and a time to celebrate God-with-us: 
Incarnation. Amen 
Duncan Macleod
Presbytery Minister – Team Leader

Port Phillip East Presbytery Well, that is probably enough to read and think about. During these times of anxiety, we are not to despair! God is here with us. I feel for those unable to visit their loved ones in hospital, or to be there when they go on their final journey, BUT our thoughts and prayers are with them, as God is too. Blessings and love Barbara