Alright, alright. I’m back blogging again. It has just been a very busy week.
Off today on mini-pilgrimage with a member of St Saviour’s. We are going to Walsingham. Well, we are going to Paisley really – Walsingham is coming to us. There is an afternoon of contemplation and meditation and general holiness in the Holy Trinity and St Barnabus, Paisley organised by the folk who organise the annual Scottish pilgrimage to Walsingham. Today is the Annunciation – nine months until Christmas. (Stop sniggering at the back!)
I’ve never been to Walsingham, and have been put off by recent reports. It is a terrible shame when people’s devotion becomes politicised as it appears to be there over whether ordination is open to people or male people. What Herself would have made of it, I can’t imagine.
Walsingham, The Annunciation and Christmas
Shame about Walsingham. Knew the Vicar in the early 1980’s (Timothy Ganz – I think). Fantastic voice and an asset in the sung service on an RSCM course.
Visiting Darren on the Feast of the Annunciation – how does the smoking ban affect Darren’s liking for Incense.
Come Christmas you will the privilege of being in charge of a church dedicated to Our Lady, which is not adverse to a touch of incense from time to time.
9 weeks and 3 days to go before you join us in Glasgow. Best singing voice at the ready 🙂
Devotion, politics, and the Book
Isn’t it possible that all devotion will be politicized if it is mediated through truths laid down in a book. The nature of such a text inevitably leads to argument for or against certain interpretations of the text. Wouldn’t it be nice if life were as certain as a book might make out?
The culture of devotion at Walsingham and the manner in which one side of an argument is portrayed as having authority over the other is nothing new. Difference is never value neutral in a community (even when it seems to be) and women with a calling / vocation to the priesthood are still considered as negatively different by some folk, just as gay folk are.
I’d go, take Julian of Norwich with you to read, and enjoy the spirituality you can gain from your own dialogue with God. All the rest strikes me as a smoke screen that keeps us away from the conversation of prayer?
If it had been Walsingham we might have found it a bit more easily. No one way traffic systems down there I suspect!
The Paisley One-Way System
The one way system near Paisley Gilmour Street Station is designed to keep you away from Darren’s charge at HTP. I travel through there on a regular basis when using Glasgow Airport and it is never easy, however with the current roadworks on the M8 at the airport, one of the diversionalry routes takes you right past HTP into the one-way system.
The only challenge with going to Walsingham is the number of spped cameras on the A14 once you leave the M6 and head towards Norfolk.
Thanks, but if only I’d found the time to read my Lent book’s readings for today before leaving instead of relying on a Sat Nav I’m sure we’d have been fine. The Lord said: My people, when you stood at the crossroads, I told you, "Follow the road your ancestors took, and you will find peace". But you refused. Jeremiah 6:16
and
The snow on Lebanon’s mountains never melts away, and the streams never run dry. But you, my people, have turned from me to burn incense to worthless idols. You have left the ancient road to follow an unknown path where you stumble over idols. Jeremiah 18:14-15
Paisley
Reportedly definitely thinner in Paisley.
You can never be too r… or too th..
Satnav works for me.