Church in Melbourne

As I wrote in the previous post, my favorite experiences are when I leave the tourist zone. Another favorite part is when we reconnect with friends. On this day we did both: we went to church with a friend we worshipped with when she lived in New Jersey.

Robyn's worship service didn't start until 11 am. They share space with another congregation who meets earlier. As it was only a ten minute walk from where we were staying, we had a little free time on our hands. Living like locals we went to ALDI to restock our supply of breakfast foods.

Then we returned to the Queen Victoria Market. It was livelier on Sunday morning than it was when we visited midweek. Some tourist spots, but mostly where locals do their produce shopping. We bought a crepe from a charming couple who does this on weekends, with her mother helping out.

A nice way to spend a lazy Sunday morning.

We met up with Robyn at Wesley Church, her home church. Seven years ago she and her husband, Peter, returned to Melbourne after living in Mercer County a few years. We went running together a couple of times, and worshipped at WiNK together many Sunday evenings. I always enjoyed her sermons on the rare times she preached. 

Wesley Church is a Uniting Church, a term we were not familiar with before this. As I understand it, about 50 years ago many of the mainstream churches merged to become stronger. The Presbyterians did not join because they did not want women to be ordained, so they unordained them and said only men could govern. Unordained is not even spellchecking as a word, which goes to show how wrong that idea is.

Much of the worship service was in honor of Hildegard of Bingen, including using one of her recipes for the coffee hour cookies. Prior to this service I had not heard of Hildegard, though I immediately wanted to love her because she shared a name with Gigi, my Great-Grandmother, who was Hilda. Hildegard was as 12th century Renaissance woman (long before the actual Renaissance). The youngest of 10 children she wrote the oldest surviving Passion Play, plus three books, 77 and songs. Plus she was a baker, an artist, changed the way music was written, grew herbs, was a healer. Though sickly as a child lived to be 82. As the minister said, the type of person who was good at everything.

When she was 42, Hildegard realized God wanted her to share her visions with the world. Born in the 11th century, she lived halfway between Jesus's time and ours, and is still relevant today.

We sang one of her hymns during worship. Though the service was completely different from the seafarers service we attended the week before in Wellington, it was still memorable and thought-provoking. Robyn said it was very different from a typical service in that we sang in Latin, but the history lesson about a strong woman was the message I needed to hear. 

Hymn by Hildegard

 

Recipe by Hildegard

After worship Robyn drove us to lunch near the botanical garden. We caught up on the goss as Australians who like to truncate all words like to say. I couldn't believe it when she said they moved back to Melbourne seven years earlier! Time really flies. It is important to carve some of it out to spend with friends.

Don and I went to the Botanical Garden for a stroll through the flowers. Being further north than we were in New Zealand, spring was more in bloom. Yes, my Northern Hemisphere brain has troubles with that. I also struggled with the concept of Spring in September, Hearing Christmas music. Looking the correct way so we did not get run over. And not screaming when in a moving vehicle and it goes through a traffic circle in a way that would bring certain death back home.

These are called "iris confusa" --
the best name for a flower!

The Botanical Garden is across the street from their War Memorial, the Shrine of Remembrance. Don and I admire how the Aussies and Kiwis remember their veterans. This is a monumental building on the top of a hill with fantastic views of Melbourne, in other words, prime real estate. 

The special exhibit that caught my interest the most was the one about the children left in Australia while their fathers fought in World War I and World War II. One note I did write was of the 120,000 Jews in Holland at the beginning of WWII, 108,000 were killed -- only 1/10th survived the Holocaust.

My notes were light on the inside, other than it was moving. Every Sunday afternoon they have a ceremony honoring their fallen soldiers. I intended to stay for it, but decided to return to the State Library to finish the self-guided tour. We then walked to the Keith Haring mural.

The next night we walked back towards the Shrine of Remembrance. It shines like a beacon.