Contact - April 2020

CONTACT

Magazine of Erdington Methodist Church Station Road - April 2020 GROWING GOD’S KINGDOM IN ERDINGTON, THROUGH WORSHIP, PRAYER, ACTION AND FRIENDSHIP 1

Contents From our Minister Malcolm Craft Club The Body The Pipe Organ Birmingham Circuit Services Crossword Contact Articles Remembering my experiences of WW2 Lichfield Cathedral & St Chad All in the month of April The Lord is my Shepherd Don’t break’em Crossword Answers

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From our Minister Malcolm It's out of date! Most things seem to be subject to an expiry date, regardless of whether or not they are perishable. Society can move so fast that even before something is sold or distributed it is ‘out of date’ . . . not least the articles in this magazine! The country is now hoping and praying that there is an expiry date to the COVID-19 virus which I sense could well not go ‘out of date’ for many months.

On one hand, it does not take much faith to consume some jam or butter which has expired due to a ‘use by’ date . . . on the other hand it takes a great deal of faith to say ‘all will be well’ when we hear such things as ’10 more people have died in UK (March 14th 2020). In UK we have the option to disregard or get rid of many unwanted things . . . but available options of how to live alongside COVID-19 virus present much more profound challenges.

I sense people will be asking a variety of questions: Where is God in all this? Does God want us to suffer? Is God judging the world?

These and the plethora of others questions are very challenging to answer satisfactorily and maybe answers will allude us and others.

However alongside those questions we could be asking: How can COVID-19 be used to God’s praise and glory? What good can come out of this seeming disaster?

• Understanding what it means to live by faith, not being in a position to predict or determine things in the way we have become accustomed to do.

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• Exploring what is really precious to us.

• Discovering if what we believe can be relied on or not.

• Possibility to slow down our pace of living due to the need to self isolate • Evaluating what is really important to us and what should be our priorities • Time to read and study the bible.

• Growing in appreciation of each and every new day.

• Focusing our prayer.. knowing that we share a common experience that binds us together.

• Developing fresh ways of communicating using current technology such as WhatsApp, Facebook etc.

• Pondering differing ways of worship, maybe re-evaluating what we do when we come together on Sundays and other days of the week.

Romans 8 verse 28: We are confident that God is able to orchestrate everything to work toward something good and beautiful when we love Him and accept His invitation to live according to His plan ( Voice Translation) 4

Although we all look forward to the Virus expiring/becoming ‘out of date’ and desire to avoid Good Friday, may we experience in fresh ways the glorious message of Easter Day : Christ is Risen, He is risen indeed.

Blessings Malcolm

Craft Club Since Christmas, members of the Craft Club have been busy making cards for the church cards rack in the foyer and we are pleased to hand over another £100, this time for the organ fund.

Thank you for your support and please continue to look at and buy the cards we make.

Our little group is becoming rather depleted now as we have lost old friends, so if anyone would like to join us, we meet on Thursday once a month and you would be most welcome.

Please speak to Audrey Hedley if you are interested.

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The Body A friend gave me a copy of the latest Bill Bryson book “The Body, a guide for occupants”. I have never read anything by Bill Bryson before but if this is the benchmark I am not surprised that he is a popular author. This book sets out an amazing array of miscellaneous facts about the human body which reveal how much we have learned about ourselves and more surprisingly how much we don’t understand or have never bothered to try and find out, for a multitude of reasons.

As an interested student of biology, a significant proportion is within the extremities of my background knowledge. But there are a multitude of pearls, which Bryson drops out, that make me look and look again. There were two revelations which I found the most startling: skin and motherhood.

The skin is the largest organ in the body, about 20 square feet when laid out flat: designed to keep the inside in and the outside out. It also connects us to the outside world via touch. But even this is not as it seems at first glance? When we feel something, our brain is not only telling us what we feel it is also telling us what we ought to feel. That is why it is so difficult to tickle oneself.

The chapter on skin starts off with the revelation that once the skin is removed from a body there is no way, anatomically, to determine the race of that body. It then goes on to talk about hair and sweat glands, not necessarily the subjects of polite conversation. There was an interesting diversion about the total lack of understanding about why some men go bald and others don’t, so beware charlatans. But to return to hair and sweat glands, both are very 6

important evolutionary achievements for humans. When early humans came down out of the trees in East Africa and became bipedal they made themselves very vulnerable, both to predators and to starvation. The solution, which evolved over several hundred thousand years was to shed our hair and learn to sweat.

Apparently over a long distance a fit human can outrun a gazelle.

After about 15km, Bryson claims, if an antelope cannot stop and cool down they become too overheated and just fall down, becoming easy prey to a group of humans armed with nothing more than a few wooden clubs.

Then there was the point about motherhood, apologies in advance to the technicalities. Each cell in our body contains numerous structures called mitochondria. These are the power stations of our cells, turning the food we eat into the energy which we need for living. Mitochondria are only passed to babies via the mother’s egg, there are none in the father’s sperm. As a result, every time a mother has no daughters or no children that particular mitochondrial line stops: sons cannot pass on mitochondria to their children. The rate at which mitochondria change over time can be calculated and statistically it has been reported that everyone who is alive today has their mitochondria from a woman who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago: mitochondrial Eve. I will give you one or two other amazing facts from this magical tome. Apparently, there is debate about how much our ingredients would cost with some saying the 1960 price was about £2.00!

Another fact which I had heard previously is that our memories are really rather fallible. Bryson reports that he has a vivid memory of watching the terrorist attack on the twin towers in September 2001 7

on the TV with both of his children, but one was in London at the time. I had previously heard this expressed a little different: the only memory which is accurate is held by an amnesiac because every time we remember something we reinterpret it in the light of the context of the time in which it was remembered.

From the salivary glands in our mouths over the course of a lifetime we secrete 60,000 pints of saliva, which keeps everything moist and well lubricated. Saliva is basically water with a few other things mixed in. Along with a few minerals it contains amylase which starts the digestion of starches, lipase which starts the digestion of fats and lysozyme which starts to kill unwanted microorganisms in our food. More recently another interesting compound has been discovered opiorphin, which is a potent analgesic. Unfortunately, no one knows why it is there or what its function could possibly be.

Lastly, for the technically minded a human brain can contain about 200 exabytes of information, which Bryson claims is roughly equal to the entire digital content of today’s world. An exabyte is 10 followed by 17 0’s.

“God looked over everything he had made; it was so good, so very good! It was evening, it was morning – Day six”. (Genesis 1:31)

Peter Farley

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The Pipe Organ

J.S.Bach was a magnificent musician. Here are two of his quotes: 1. I play the notes as they are written but it is God who makes the music 2. There is nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.

At Erdington Methodist Church we are fortunate that we have some talented musicians who help out in an assortment of different ways. Many of us appreciate their musical offerings. I find that the ever increasing onset of my age causes me to realise and understand more and more of J.S.Bach’s exceptional music. What joy it is when occasionally Nick surprises us all after morning worship and suddenly launches into a Bach prelude, or toccata, or fugue, on our rather elderly church pipe organ. Bach’s expertise on the organ was second to none. How privileged we are when we are given an opportunity to enjoy not only the composer’s expertise, but also Nick’s ability to play it.

Barbara Rawson 9

Birmingham Circuit Services I get the impression that a number of us have been doing a number of varied things on a Sunday when our own worship has been suspended.

I have been joining around 300 other people watching a really quite professionally streamed service put out by the Birmingham Methodist District. It is broadcast live on Facebook (just search for Birmingham Methodist District in Facebook) each Sunday at 10.30 am.

I have been impressed by the technical prowess of those producing it and also by the content which has been very moving.

If you want to see what it is like then you can find the services which you can still watch on the Birmingham District facebook page.

If you want you can join me on Sunday and it is possible to ‘type’ chat and say hi to others worshiping Why not give it a go?

I realise that all this technology is challenging to some of us but the reward is well worth the effort.

God Bless & keep safe Nick 10

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Crossword As we are all very much ‘confined to barracks’ at the moment I’ve added in a crossword to challenge you this month - enjoy - ed

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Across 1 Relating to the whole universe (6) 4 The disciple who made the remark in 8 Across (John 20:24) (6) 8 ‘Unless I see the nail marks — — hands, I will not believe it’ (John 20:25) (2,3) 9 He urged King Jehoiakim not to burn the scroll containing Jeremiah’s message (Jeremiah 36:25) (7) 10 Baptist minister and controversial founder of America’s Moral Majority, Jerry — (7) 11 ‘Look, here is — . Why shouldn’t I be baptized?’ (Acts 8:36) (5) 12 Repossessed (Genesis 14:16) (9) 17 Port from which Paul sailed on his last journey to Rome (Acts 27:3–4) (5) 19 ‘Moses was not aware that his face was — because he had spoken with the Lord’ (Exodus 34:29) (7) 21 Roonwit, C.S. Lewis’s half-man, half-horse (7) 22 Grill (Luke 24:42) (5) 23 ‘The lot fell to Matthias; so he was added to the — apostles’ (Acts 1:26) (6) 24 ‘I was sick and you looked after me, I was in — and you came to visit me’ (Matthew 25:36) (6)

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Down 1 Coastal rockfaces (Psalm 141:6) (6) 2 Academic (1 Corinthians 1:20) (7) 3 Publish (Daniel 6:26) (5) 5 For example, the Crusades (4,3) 6 11 Across is certainly this (5) 7 He reps (anag.) (6) 9 Liberator (Psalm 18:2) (9) 13 Man who asked the question in 11 Across was in charge of all her treasury (Acts 8:27) (7) 14 They must be ‘worthy of respect, sincere, not indulging in much wine’ (1 Timothy 3:8) (7) 15 The human mind or soul (6) 16 ‘O Lord, while precious children starve, the tools of war increase; their bread is — ’ (Graham Kendrick) (6) 18 ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not — ’ (Matthew 11:17) (5) 20 Bared (anag.) (5)

Contact Articles As there is very little going on at the moment it will become increasingly difficult to put out monthly magazines. I would therefore ask you to cast your minds back a little and perhaps write an article about something you remember vividly - perhaps from your childhood or young adulthood. It would be good to hear from our young people too. Perhaps there is something you have done at school during the last twelve months that everyone would like to hear about. Get writing people . . . ed.

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Remembering my experiences of WW2 It was suggested to me that I might like to write something for Contact, as Nick may be a bit short of material this month.

My mind was a blank and then I remembered someone comparing these strange days to WW2. Queues for food but not much to buy, but many kind acts being offered daily. Then I had an idea to write about my war experiences. Since I was born a year after the war started my experiences are few! So you can breathe a sigh of relief.

My father opted to join the RAF (I don’t think he ever got into a plane) to avoid being called up with no choice as to what to do, and he sailed for Algiers soon after I was two years old. That meant my mother and I had a three bed semi to ourselves, in a suburb of Gloucester.

Before long she had a family billeted in the house and the three of them had a bedroom, dining room and shared the kitchen and bathroom. I remembered others being in the house but was too young for them to make any impact on me. In fact they didn’t stay long as the man was a follower of Oswald Moseley, and when this was discovered they were removed. After that, a single nurse came to live with us and she and my mother got on well. I liked her because she showed an interest in me, and believed me when I told her that my toy penguin could walk along our landing by himself !

I have two snapshots in my mind of a couple of incidents when I was about four. I don’t think that Gloucester was a particular war target, but there was some sporadic bombing around the city, luckily further in than where we lived. However, there was plenty of local activity as soldiers were redeployed and tanks moved 16

around. It was not unusual for tanks to pass by our door. I am certain that a close eye would have been kept on me, and where I travelled (probably around the garden). In any case the exit from the garden was through a side door and the front gate. One day I escaped, no memory of how I did it, but my mother caught up with me, on my tricycle, half way towards the end of the road before a crossing. I have no recollection of what happened next, but I don’t think I did it again!

The other one concerns air raid warnings. They were a horrible sound and I didn’t like them. One day the siren went off and I was bundled into the small cupboard under the stairs. I don’t remember what I was told, but presumably it was enough to keep me calm. Maybe that is the reason that I have been claustrophobic ever since! Eventually we acquired a Morrison shelter, which was also used as a table. I clearly remember sitting under it early one morning with my mother, who was knitting clothes for my doll, until the ‘all clear’ meant that we could crawl out!

That is about the extent of my wartime memory, except that I do remember, the day my father came home finally, watching the dog chew up his RAF cap!

The day a bomb dropped on Barton Street - this from someone who lived closer to the town I spent from birth to 9 years old living at 269 Barton Street and was a WW2 baby. My mother told me about the bomb that fell when I was a baby, which obliterated two or three houses next to us, leaving a crack in our outer wall. She was in the garden hanging out the washing when the plane went over and she saw it discharge its cargo. She grabbed my sister 17

and I, and called the family cat and ran into our cellar. She said that she was desperately worried that the eggs she had planned for tea and left in a bowl on the kitchen window sill, would be broken and was wondering what she could feed us instead. After the ghastly noise ceased, and she came out of the cellar, the eggs were still intact! She said that was all she thought about in the cellar and all else left her mind. After the war she never talked about the neighbours or any aftermath - just the above story.

Hilary Price

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Lichfield Cathedral & St Chad Just before the beginning of all the restrictions in personal contact I decided to spend a day out and about and wondered whether to revisit Lichfield Cathedral.

I’ve been in the Cathedral many times but as I approached its impressive facade it struck me that I had never really done the ‘tourist’ thing as Lichfield almost felt like around the corner!

It wasn’t the brightest of days but I managed to shoot a reasonable photo of the facade.

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When I entered the Cathedral there was someone accepting donations and of course I did the dutiful thing to help keep our Cathedrals open. Fortunately a spoken tour had not long started and I was allowed to join a smallish group as we learned all about the cathedral.

I discovered the connection between Lichfield Cathedral and St Chad and that there was something called the Head Chapel. I must admit I’ve never noticed this small chapel before. It is up a flight of stairs so higher than the main level (a little like an upstairs flat!). It is called the ‘Head’ chapel because at one time it was believed to house the skull of St Chad and apparently the skull was from time to time held out from the balcony of the Head Chapel for the people to Venerate (not sure how you do that but bizarre eh?)

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Lichfield also has some quite glorious stained-glass from France. I was most struck by how blue they were!

I’m definitely going to visit again as there seemed so much to see and learn about that I’d obviously missed completely over the years. Recommended if you haven’t done the tourist thing Nick Riley 21

All in the month of April Did you know it was: 250 years ago, on 7th April 1770 that William Wordsworth, British Romantic poet, was born. He was Poet Laureatte 1843-50.

100 years ago, on 25th April 1920 that Britain was assigned the Mandate for Palestine. It officially took control of Mandatory Palestine in September 1923 and held it until the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.

75 years ago, in April the following concentration camps and prison were liberated: Buchenwald (11th April); Bergen-Belsen (15th April); Colditz Castle (16th April); Dachau (29th April). They were liberated by either US, British or Canadian forces.

65 years ago, on 15th April 1955 that American fast-food pioneer Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois.

40 years ago, on 29th April 1980 that Alfred Hitchcock, British-born American film director and producer (Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, and many more) died.

30 years ago, on 24th April 1990 that the Hubble Space Telescope was launched.

15 years ago, on 9th April 2005 that Charles, Prince of Wales married Camilla Parker Bowles, who gained the title the Duchess of Cornwall.

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The Lord is my Shepherd A Sunday school teacher decided to have her young class memorise one of the most quoted passages in the Bible, Psalm 23.

She gave the youngsters a month to learn the Psalm, but little Charles did not find it easy to memorise much of anything.

On the day that the children were scheduled to recite Psalm 23 in front of the congregation, Charles stepped up to the microphone and began proudly, “The Lord is my Shepherd….” He knew that much, but the rest of the Psalm suddenly deserted him. So he concluded bravely: “… and that’s all I need to know.”

Don’t break’em There was a very gracious lady who was mailing an old family Bible to her brother in another part of the country. “Is there anything breakable in here?” asked the postal clerk.

The lady paused for a moment. “Only the Ten Commandments,” she said politely.

from the Parish Pump Website

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Crossword Answers ACROSS: 1, Cosmic. 4, Thomas. 8, In his. 9, Delaiah. 10, Falwell.

11, Water. 12, Recovered. 17, Sidon. 19, Radiant. 21, Centaur.

22, Broil. 23, Eleven. 24, Prison.

DOWN: 1, Cliffs. 2, Scholar. 3, Issue. 5, Holy war. 6, Moist.

7, Sphere. 9, Deliverer. 13, Candace. 14, Deacons. 15, Psyche.

16, Stolen. 18, Dance. 20, Debar.

Please hand any items for the May CONTACT to any of the Editorial Team (Peter Farley, Christine Rossiter, Ann Tomes & Nick Riley) by 15th April 2020 at the latest please, or alternatively email me: nickriley@blueyonder.co.uk with the word ‘CONTACT’ in the title.

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