HOW LUCKY ARE WE...

JAZZ IN THE PINES

I realise I have not posted for a while. I seem to have been caught up, as well as bogged down, with all sorts of things, including pre-Christmas activities. I really needed to get things back into perspective!!

So when Tina suggested we head down to Kingston yesterday afternoon, for a Jazz concert, we jumped at the chance to blow the cobwebs away and totally relax for an hour or two.

Actually, the term "blowing away the cobwebs" takes on a whole new meaning when you are sitting just a metre or two away from these magnificent big brass instruments!

Each year, Norfolk Island stages a big "Jazz in the Pines" Festival, which attracts large numbers of Jazz lovers from all over Australia and New Zealand. Performances and concerts take place all through the week in different venues, and many, including this one, are free.

When we went to the airport on Thursday evening to meet my sister, there were three musicians in the terminal, entertaining as people were coming through customs! My sister said there had even been a jam session on the plane!

The concert at Emily Bay started at lunchtime, and went on right through the afternoon. There were fish and chips, and masses of salads available to buy for lunch.....Ten dollars for all you could eat!

 Lots of visitors and locals took advantage of the opportunity to sit back and enjoy it all, in this most picturesque setting. Now I have a confession, that I am not a great fan of jazz music. But I do love to see Jazz musicians perform, in a spirit of joy and total immersion in what they are doing, so much of it ad lib as they take their cues from one another. There has to be real bonding in a jazz band.

You can see why they call it Jazz in the Pines!

 Ricky Robertson is a "local", and always takes the opportunity to come over to Norfolk Island with his family and his band at this time!

 Andre is one of our Governmental Ministers, but music is his first love, and he enjoys being at the "controls".

 Here are my sister Sally, her husband Roy, and Bernie feeling totally relaxed.

And even young Jasper seemed to be loving it.

 Now, how lucky are we, being able to enjoy this sort of thing, totally free, in magic surroundings, and just five minutes from home??

ABOUT ANGELS

I went for a stroll around our Norfolk Island cemetery the other day in search of angels. I was looking for stone and marble angels to photograph for Diana, who is "collecting" them! Now I am not sure of the significance of the coffee jar in this first picture, but then again, graves can be very personal!

Now, angels have been hi-jacked by popular culture in recent times. My Bible Dictionary tells me they are messengers of God, with a special ministry to mankind. Sadly, God, whom the angels worship and serve, is often by-passed or ignored in the modern feel-good, and sometimes tacky portrayal of angels. They are often confused with the more make-believe order of fairies. I hope I have not offended anyone here - I think fairies are wonderful mythological creatures and in that role, a great force for good! I grew up on fairies, but I am glad to say I did not grow out of my faith in God - and His Angels - when I came to the stage of being a little sceptical about the fairies at the bottom of the garden!

Cherubim are especially popular in the portrayal of angels, although once again, in popular culture, there is often a bit of confusion with Cupid. My fellow needleworkers are especially guilty of this.

There has always been a strong awareness of the role of angels when a loved one dies. It is often when it is the death of a loved one who dies young, or unexpectedly or undeservedly.

Perhaps it is because of a feeling of helplessness that we mentally hand over the protection and care of that person to God's angels, and in Luke 16, it is suggested that angels carry the "righteous dead" into the bosom of Abraham. Sometimes it is the rather mistaken notion that because that person or child was "good" that they will become angels themselves. Indeed God promises that we will be like the Angels in that we will dwell in His Glory and freely praise and worship him as they do!

Anyway, as you can see from the pictures, we depict angels in many forms. Some look very human, and that is how they often appeared to mankind in the Bible.

I could only find two actual headsones that incorporated angels.

 The rest were ornaments sitting under the headstone or at the foot of the grave. Distance and freight costs have undoubtedly had an effect on the variety and elaborateness of memorials and headsones here on Norfolk Island.

As you can see, our cemetery on Norfolk Island is beautiful and well-cared for, and its location is extremely desirable - right beside a picturesque beach, with blue-green waters, wonderful rockpools, and foamy breakers.

I have not shown anything of the fascinating convict era section of our cemetery. That will be the subject of a future posting!