On the water again... in an Iqyak

Busy weekend just past with a trip to the Banksia peninsular for the annual gathering of the Victorian Sea Kayak Club (VSKC).  Weather was looking particularly 'dodgy' so, even though I belatedly re-registered my ancient K1100RS to make the trip, I chickened out and took the car... which did enable me to load the baidarka for the 300km journey east from Melbourne toward Gippsland.  Harking back to my days as a travelling Regional Minister I veered from the freeway to traverse a well loved alternative route which takes in some beautiful sections of Eastern Victoria including the towns of Heyfield and Maffra before re-emerging at the poetically named Stratford-on-the-River-Avon and the somewhat boring straight stretch from there to Bairnsdale and out to Camp Coolamatong, a site run by Scripture Union Victoria and specializing in School Camping with plenty of 'on-water' activities.

Having driven through some heavy rain, it was a relief to find that the camp had escaped the worst of the unseasonably cool and wet November we have experienced, with high temps in the teens all week and the coolest since the 1980's.  The strong winds remained quite challenging for kayaking...

Having arrived and located the site, I joined my sartorially elegant mate Bob-ever-on-the-water-Fergie to help teach a class in Greenland Paddle skills for an hour or so - they seemed to catch on very well and our not-so-subversive campaign to promote traditional timber paddles gained some more traction!

 I think between the three of us (Brandon, Bob and Self) we managed to have more than a dozen Aleut or Greenland Paddles available for people to try... quite a collection!

Brandon managed to get in on the act, in between looking after young Samuel and making sure the grandparents were aware of their responsibilities... he paddles that craft almost as well as his aging father does!  It does seem to sit slightly higher in the water with him in it?

Mind you, the way young Samuel handles the "stick" and sets up for a roll it won't be long until the next generation takes over the baton!

The AGM saw a new committee elected, and after some controversy and much secret-balloting Rev Dr Bob Fergie was installed as the new president with a largely new executive and other committee members.  I thought Church members meetings were challenging enough, but this one involved proxies, legal challenges and much referencing of the new  2012 Model Rules... all in all people seemed relieved when it was finally over! Credit must go to outgoing President Terry Barry and his excellent leadership these past three years - in fact he received a standing ovation from the members, and deservedly so for his determined and strategically forthright leadership.

 I jumped back in the car and convoyed back to Melbourne in concert with my favourite sister-of-my-daughter-by-marriage, the indefatigable Renny in her nippy 'Hoon-dai.'  A long but a very worthwhile day...

On a sadder note, for the second time in as many weeks, my local Church community of EDBC (East Doncaster Baptist Church) farewelled one of its members on Monday as we paid tribute to the life of Ellayne Jacka, whom we had come to know in recent years through LINC and had been an enthusiastic member of the Church Choir, despite her difficulties with deteriorating vision and other health issues.  She was a real character and will be much missed.

I love this excerpt from Frederick Buechner's "Telling the Truth":

WHEN THEY BROUGHT Jesus to the place where his dead friend lay, Jesus wept. It is very easy to sentimentalize the scene and very tempting because to sentimentalize something is to look only at the emotion in it and at the emotion it stirs in us rather than at the reality of it, which we are always tempted not to look at because reality, truth, silence are all what we are not much good at and avoid when we can. To sentimentalize something is to savour rather than to suffer the sadness of it, is to sigh over the prettiness of it rather than to tremble at the beauty of it, which may make fearsome demands of us or pose fearsome threats. Not just as preachers but as Christians in general we are particularly given to sentimentalizing our faith as much of Christian art and Christian preaching bear witness—the sermon as tearjerker, the Gospel an urn of long-stemmed roses and baby's breath to brighten up the front of the church, Jesus as Gregory Peck.

But here standing beside the dead body of his dead friend he is not Gregory Peck. He has no form or comeliness about him that we should desire him, and as one from whom men hide their faces we turn from him. To see a man weep is not a comely sight, especially this man whom we want to be stronger and braver than a man, and the impulse is to turn from him as we turn from anybody who weeps because the sight of real tears, painful and disfiguring, forces us to look to their source where we do not choose to look because where his tears come from, our tears also come from.