Message from the Chaplain

From The Chaplain – Week 3, Term 3, 2023 – Hearing Rightly

Have you ever heard of ‘Mondegreens’??  They’re what you’re left with when you mishear or misinterpret a statement or song lyric; for instance, when you find yourself singing, ‘I’ll never leave your pizza burning’ along with the Rolling Stones’ song – though the actual words are, ‘I’ll never be your beast of burden’.  A couple of other famous examples: ‘There’s a bathroom on the right’ (for Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘There’s a bad moon on the rise’); or the Go-Gos’ 1980’s hit ‘Alex the Seal’ (actually, it’s ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’).  

But it’s not only song lyrics that people mishear, is it?  Somehow the information that gets taught in classes doesn’t always come through as it’s meant to be heard – such as when students are writing it down in exams.  For instance, here are some actual answers given in History exams (none of them, I hasten to add, from any Calrossy student!):

‘In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java.’

‘Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son’s head.’

‘Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread made without any ingredients.  Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments.  He died before he ever reached Canada.’

I reckon that many people have their own ‘Biblical Mondegreens’, when it comes to hearing rightly what God’s Word says – and it’s not just examples like the child who thought God’s name was Harold, because he’d heard the Lord’s Prayer as beginning: ‘Our Father in Heaven, Harold (hallowed) be your name’!  However, there is a solution to this: it involves opening the Bible and reading it for oneself.  Far better to do this, and get the words right; especially since, as John 6:68 reminds us, it contains ‘the words of eternal life’.

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Community Prayer Breakfast

A reminder too that our regular Community Prayer Breakfast, to which all members of Calrossy are very welcome, is coming up shortly! 

Whether you’re a parent, staff member, student, Board member or friend of our School, put Friday 11th August, 7.30-8.15am (Room 108 at the Brisbane Street Campus) in your diary.  Then come along to share in a delicious brekky, and in thanking God for Calrossy and praying for the activities and the people that make us who we are!

Rev. Mark Rundle

Calrossy Chaplain