What is in Kelvin's Head?

Going out and coming in

27/05/2015

This week I’ll have been at St Mary’s for nine years. It is the anniversary of my installation on Sunday. And this year I’ve decided to give myself an anniversary treat.

When I came to St Mary’s there was much to try to understand and much to take in. Just trying to get your head around how things work in a new congregation is always tricky. Every place does things almost the same. But almost the same means that every place does things differently. Slightly differently – and that’s much more difficult to cope with than learning something completely new.

One particular conundrum presented itself to me on my first Sunday. How did we get in? Did the clergy and choir go in singing a hymn and then turn and greet the people or did we process in, turn, greet and sing a hymn?

Trying to learn from those who ought to know, I took a couple of people aside and asked them. Their responses were enlightening.

Person number one told me very assuredly that the choir and clergy processed in singing and then greeted the people.

Person number two told me just as assuredly that the choir and clergy processed in, greeted the people and then we sang the hymn.

This was less than helpful. As the days counted down towards my first Sunday I needed to know.

The only thing I could do was ask another person and take their answer as the tiebreaker. And so I did.

“Oh, Provost, we do whatever the Provost would like us to do,” was the answer.

It was a slightly disturbing answer because one of the things that I knew I needed to be here was to be someone who didn’t have all the answers and who could let St Mary’s find a way of being where all the questions didn’t get thrown at the Provost to answer.

However, without being able to get a definitive answer from anyone, I did in the end say what we were going to do in order to get ourselves into place.

The trouble is, I’ve been regretting one detail ever since, particularly recently.

What I said would happen is that we would process in. Then the choir and clergy would bow to one another from either side of the communion table, the clergy would turn, greet the people and then we would sing a hymn.

It looks smart, it means we all start knowing what we are doing and we don’t flap about with music as we are processing.

But the thing that has been bugging me recently is that it only really includes those who are at the sharp end of the church.

We bow to one another to signify that God is present – that God is amongst us; that God is about us and within us.

But what about the bulk of the congregation? Isn’t God in them too?

This has been bothering me for some time and I found myself talking to Richard Giles about it on Saturday.

Now, Richard Giles is one of the most interesting liturgists to have emerged in the last few years. And on Saturday he looked me in the eyes and said the magic words – “Well, if you are not happy with it, just change it. It isn’t too late….”

And he was right.

So, we’re going to change things from this Sunday.

From this week, the choir and clergy will process in. They will then bow to one another from either side of the table. And then the clergy will turn and bow to the congregation who are invited to return the bow.

We’re all in this together.

The smallest of gestures can mean a great deal in the world of liturgical worship.

We’re going to try this one for a bit and see whether it works. My last thought on the subject has served us well for nine years, but it is time for a change.

Odd what Provosts give themselves as anniversary presents, isn’t it?

anniversary, bowing

8 responses to “Assisted Dying – Why I’ve changed my mind”

BobS

16/03/2026

You lucidly illustrated an example of a family seeking to pressurise someone to influence the process of death. But what was possibly missing was the voice of the person nearing death. Where was their perspective, their reasoning? Assisted Dying starts and driven by the person dying. They are the ones who, with mental capacity, take those steps, if necessary, to expedite death at that final stage. They, together with medical experts, make those decisions.
The examples cited refer to a family desperate for a skiing holiday and your concern of funeral directors making money through direct cremations.
I fully agree with your desire for a better palliative care system. Having witnessed their work it is amazing. But that is another argument. To conflate the two dismisses the voice of those seeking assisted dying.
Your concern over assisted dying seems to be interwoven by a call for improved palliative care and a demise in direct cremations.

Reply
1. Rev Owain Jones
  
  16/03/2026
  
  Respectfully, Bob S, I think you’re overlooking the one thing that struck me very forcefully from this incident. I’ve always felt profoundly uneasy at the likelihood – I’d say ‘moral certainty’ – that the voice of the dying will in some cases be influenced, even swayed, by the dying person’s assumptions, inferences or intuitions (correct or not) about the needs of those closest to them, and even their desires. These desires might not be articulated, or even correctly guessed – but they might, and as soon as the dying person is subject to them, they are, by definition, influenced in their decision. At that point, Assisted Dying can no longer be said “to start and driven by the person dying.” I’ve been there for a long time – but what I suddenly realized reading Kelvin Holdsworth’s post, was that there’s a much darker issue here, and it relates to a fundamental principle to which I’ve always adhered. Please bear with me, and entertain for a moment an analogy which you might consider to be extreme, and which I’d be appalled to hear deployed by the religiously fanatical opponents of Assisted Dying. It’s this. I have always been opposed to the death penalty for a number of reasons, but very prominent among them is that it takes to an extreme the testing of a fundamental principle of justice (which I know I’m modifyng here to make the analogy a better fit, and of course, you’re free to take issue with that): “It is better that a hundred guilty men go free than that one innocent person be punished unjustly.” I’m aware that there’s a very significant separation between that and this, but I don’t believe it amounts to ‘clear blue water’. Let me try and articulate my conviction in a reasonable way, for you to consider, even if you reject it. I think that there’s a huge danger inscribed in legislation which will, of a moral certainty, permit circumstances in which unwilling dying individuals give assent under pressure to the active premature termination of their lives. This holds true even if a hundred times as many individuals assent freely, and even actively seek, such termination. One of the things that always made me uneasy about the Vulcans was the assertion that “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”. There seems to me to be no way in any legislation to protect the needs and rights of the few in this issue. At the very least, I think that needs to be acknowledged openly by proponents of Assisted Dying. If we’re about to be taken across a Rubicon, I believe that everyone, on both sides of the decision, need to acknowledge that. (Incidentally, I completely agree with Kevin Holdsworth’s horror (I hope I’m expressing that fairly) at ‘Direct Cremations’ and the way they’re advertised. They seem to me to be open profiteering from the death-phobic culture in which we’re immersed. I fear that the impulses behind Assisted Dying as currently advocated may be a good-faith manifestation of the inability of society to look at the full actuality of human mortality and the relationship between life and death. I may be deluding myself, but I think I’d say that even if I were an atheist.
  
  Reply
  1. BobS
    
    17/03/2026
    
    Rev Owain, thank you for your response. I fear your analogy was stretched to fit your argument, and, apologies if my education lacked in this quarter, where the reference to Vulcans was applicable.
    If we are concerned that a very small percentage will be wronged, then many practices today should be stopped. The statistical error you describe will always be possible, albeit minimised as much as possible.
    The proposed law tries to cater for such concerns. What appears to be the argument against assisted dying is that it is not error proof.
    If a person who is deemed to have mental capacity with less than six months to live, with suitable medical provision, seeks to alleviate their suffering, and is capable of themselves administering the medication to ultimately ease that pain, then their voice has been heard.
    I also would hope that palliative care continues to improve but that is a separate argument, as are direct cremations, and now the cost of the funeral to families. These arguments are all used to conflate the underlying issue of assisted dying.
    
    Reply
2. Val Dobson
  
  16/03/2026
  
  You are wrong to connect funeral companies’ promotion of Direct Cremation with the push for assisted dying. Nowadays, many families simply cannot afford a “proper” funeral / cremation, and funeral grants come nowhere to covering the the costs. The funeral companies are simply responding to customer needs.
  
  Reply
  1. Kelvin
    
    16/03/2026
    
    I’m happy to speak out about funerals being too expensive. However, it is manifestly not the case taht funeral companies are simply responding to customer needs. If they did they would promote these as being about price. They don’t – they promote them as being about not causing a fuss, which is the point I’m making here.
    
    Reply
Nigel Kenny

16/03/2026

Thank you for your wise and persuasive words – may they influence MSPs to vote against the Bill.

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Chriatine McIntosh

16/03/2026

Thanks for this, Kelvin – I’ve been thinking more about this as contemporaries begin to vanish from this life.

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Helen Leslie

16/03/2026

Thank you Kelvin. I am someone who has spent the majority of my working life caring for people at the end of their lives. You said exactly what I would want to.

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