SCOC – Come mourn with me awhile

Have spent part of the afternoon reflecting o­n the life and death of SCOC, the Scottish Churches Open College with Jayne Scott, its Principal. I was involved in it, by convening the committee which oversaw the degree programme. It is so sad that the college is being closed this year. I still believe in the principle – open, high quality, equi-distant theological education. Education to change churches by. It was fun to be involved, even in a small way, with something which was so sassy and so full of potential. Such a huge amount of work went into it all too. The staff talent was extraordinary. I want to mourn and I want to celebrate it all too.
Will the Scottish Episcopal Church get its act together over theological education. History suggests that it won't, though a lot of energy gets expended in the attempt. The effort at the moment is supposed to be going into identifying as many sources of theological education as possible in order to deliver formation and training locally which will be appropriate to each individual (and about time too). The SCOC courses could so easily have been part of the way forward.
It feels as though we are moving from Good Friday to Holy Saturday in SCOC. The death has happened and is real. We are moving from burial to diaspora. 
We are supposed to believe that there is always an Easter Day though.
Next year in Jerusalem…