Hello Faith Pals,
We rejoice that some of the Covid-19 restrictions have lifted. It is still uncertain when we will be able to meet for worship on Sundays, but when we are able, we will let everyone know.
Happy Monday! I started writing this now, because I was intending to wash the bed linen but one cat is still asleep on the bed (Janet Soo will understand this dilemma!) so I thought I would send out my email while I wait. I then looked at my Edward Hays, book and on November 8, he lists it as ‘New Soap Day.’!
How appropriate, I thought, as I wait to do a load of laundry.
So…let me tell you about new soap day. Apparently back in 1890 a new soap appeared , but no one was interested in it. It had been invented by a German chemist named Krafft. He had discovered if you mixed certain chemicals with alcohol, it made a lather-like soap from fat. Then came World War 1 (and yes, this is another of those inventions due to war). When the Allies blockaded Germany, no one was able to obtain natural fats (used for soap) but two men remembered Krafft’s invention, and produced a German wartime substitute for soap, a synthetic detergent that left no scum. In 1946 this synthetic detergent was manufactured under the name Tide.
So…soap…as we know it today-born from conflict, tension and the passion to find a wartime soap substitute. Another useful product that has come out of war.
Now, Edward Hays writes that we can learn a spiritual lesson from detergent (he even suggests that we might put a bottle of detergent next to our Bible, or near where we pray!) The Latin detergere means ‘to wipe away.’ Hays writes:
‘It is divine to deterge a friend, spouse or stranger’s sin as soon as it happens. Without waiting to be asked to pardon whatever mess the offense might have created, deterge it, wipe it up at once with a love-soaked sponge. Deterging is difficult even when someone asks you to do it, and is really amazing when you do it before being asked. Yet life becomes more harmonious and full of grace the faster you go to work on deterging the spills, spots and stains others make in your life.’
So…soap. Are you going to look at it differently now?
‘Have mercy on me, O God
…blot out my transgressions.
wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin,
…Purge me with hyssop, and i
shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.’
-Psalm 51, vss1, 2, 7
‘let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.’
-Hebrews 10: 22
News: Jack came through surgery, but there is still a long way to go regarding healing/recovery. Please keep Elv, Martin, Noy and Jack in your prayers, please.
This is a big week for Alan and Fredrica: blood tests and appointments today, and chemotherapy on Wednesday. Please keep them in your prayers, as well as Rohini and Jaya, Shirley Edwards, Margaret Wills. Also Lex and Leora. Lex went home on Thursday, and is doing very well, but again, a long road to recovery after open-heart surgery.
Really-put ALL of the church family in your prayers!
Plus our military, and those who have served in war. It is Remembrance Day on Wednesday, so let us remember those who were willing to sacrifice their lives for freedom:
‘On 11 November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent after four years of continuous warfare. With their armies retreating and close to collapse, German leaders signed an Armistice, bringing to an end the First World War. From the summer of 1918, the five divisions of the Australian Corps had been at the forefront of the allied advance to victory. Beginning with their stunning success at the battle of Hamel in July, they helped to turn the tide of the war at Amiens in August, followed by the capture of Mont St Quentin and Pèronne, and the breaching of German defences at the Hindenburg Line in September. By early October the exhausted Australians were withdrawn from battle. They had achieved a fighting reputation out of proportion to their numbers, but victory had come at a heavy cost. They suffered almost 48,000 casualties during 1918, including more than 12,000 dead.
In the four years of the war more than 330,000 Australians had served overseas, and more than 60,000 of them had died. The social effects of these losses cast a long shadow over the postwar decades.’
It is also NAIDOC Week; so let us celebrate the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. This reflection is from our Synod website:
Always was, Always will be
Always was
Always will be
The Lands I walk on
And the Lands that walk within me
To know the history of First Peoples
Is to know the importance of place,
To know what being on country is,
Is to know and feel the connection
To want to hear the stories and feel the stories is our call to all,
To want to know and hear the Lands
as a gift, to our being and knowing,
To know and hear from First Peoples, is how we as First and
Second Peoples are called to the growing
To know the significance and compass that abounds us, as First
Peoples through place, is to know our links to the Land surpasses all time and space
But in knowing that connection
Is to know and reflect on, dispossession and its true realisation,
To hear the Land relation, is a call to know
and reflect on the impacts of invasion and colonisation
What is country, what is milaythina ningee (Mother Earth) in the
now and in the forever time for First Peoples?
Stolen lands,
At the colonisers hands,
Stolen connection,
By forced removals,
Under the myth of protection
In Lutrawita, the 9 Nations of our ancestors lived in harmony with the Land,
The Land is us,
And we are the Land
Imagine and reflect on what happens when that is taken away?
Declaration of “The Black War” here in Tasmanian must be told and must be heard,
The impacts of broken Treaties must be learned
May our Churches and agencies discern,
For it is in Nature’s classroom that we truly learn
Learn the struggle and the survival of a people and place in realisation,
Hear the cries of our people at the hands of colonisation
Reflect on Always was Always will be,
Not in words, but in action too
And embrace the message to unlearn and be free,
Not just in words but in hearts, souls and spirits too
And reflect on the privilege of the Land walked on and with:
Know its stories
Feel its stories
Feel its call
And feel its heart
Always was
Always will be
Within me
The Land is my compass
It connects me
It connects me to place past present and future too
It’s who I am
It’s who we are as First Peoples
And in the discerning of justice for Land return,
It’s the knowing of the importance of Place,
The healing of Place is the place to Learn
It’s in knowing this connection to Land, through this lens of
discernment the true lessons are learned
Honour the land and the stories sitting within Country wherever you may be,
And be in the knowing and the growing of:
Always Was
Always Will Be
As you gather
Can you hear the stories of place?
And as you walk and gather and stand?
Can you hear the connection in the forever time
of First Peoples’ Connection to Land?
Walk it
Feel it
Know it
Hear it
Honour it
Sit and be
With what it means to truly honour,
The words “Always was, Always will be”
Written by Alison Overeem
UAICC Tasmania
Leprena
November 2020
NAIDOC week
To close with a prayer that was in the Presbytery email last week:
Well, I think that may be enough! My cat Leaf is still on the bed, but it is time she had a walk outside before it gets too hot.
Blessings and love
Barbara
