Monastic Tat

Yesterday was a meeting of the Scottish Episcopal Church Information and Communication Board in Perth. We were meeting up the hill in the monastery. It is such a sweet place. Well, sweet in a gothick kind of way. Every time you go, they have re-arranged the furniture. This time, they had moved loads of monastic tat from the chapel out into the main corridor. There are crosses and arches and sacred heart candlesticks and pew ends and pew tops and statues of miscellaneous saints all dotted about and the walls are covered in altar frontals of undistinguished origin. There are altars just lying around against the walls. The whole ensemble looks like a turn of the century catalogue from Hays and Finch. (And I don't mean the turn of the most recent century). I've always found the clock topped with a cross quite a frightening concept, but that is not the half of it now.

The community there is inclusive and lovely to us. Embracingly catholic.

The I & C Board is always good natured. I tend to wave my hands around a lot and splutter about how the internet is changing everything. I believe that, but I know that not many people understand it yet. It raises all kinds of questions about what we are publishing anything for. Within a couple of years, I am sure that a lot of small circulation newspapers will be put out of existance as people get their news and sense of community o­nline. Wither the Episcopalian?

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