Blog

  • Diversity Champions

    Hey everyone. Stonewall have issued its list of the top 100 employers who are part of its Diversity Champions programme. That is those employers who are working to promote lesbian, gay and bisexual equality in the workplace in the belief that people perform better when they can be themselves. Check out the latest list and…

  • A fox

    Funny, isn’t it, how a fox is always a moment in time. Tonight, she and I stopped. Frozen. Gazing at one another in the street near the Arlington Baths. The knowledge that she is a scavenger and a pest did not limit her regal pose. She and I gaze, each seeing something in the other.…

  • New Corporate Image

    The proofs of the new corporate image for the Scottish Episcopal Church have arrived at last today. It has been quite a job for the Information and Communication Board and I was getting worried that they would not arrive in time for this year’s General Synod to approve them. Synod will actually be part of…

  • Relation of College of Bishops to the General Synod

    Someone asked me recently what the relationship was between the College of Bishops and the General Synod. It is a good question. Fortunately, the code of canons is quite specific about this. Canon 52 Section 20 is helpfully clear: The Primus may at any time, when requested to do so by the College of Bishops,…

  • Latest official response from the Scotland to the Covenant proposal

    The Faith and Order Board of the Scottish Episcopal Church has published a response to the St Andrews Draft of the proposed Anglican Covenant. You can read it all here.

  • Mothering Sunday

    Here is a treat for Mothering Sunday – here at St Mary’s we are having the annual “Come to Mother Church” shindig at 6.30 pm. We’ve got massed musicians from all over the diocese singing some great music, a pinch of poetry, a wee sermon from me and the delight of singing songs of praise…

  • Petition and Parliamentary Update

    You’ll remember that I was going on about people signing a petition to allow gay couples the same access to marriage as straight couples. Here is the update on what happened when the petition was presented. On Tuesday afternoon, the petition was heard by the Scottish Parliamentary Public Petitions Committee. There was cross party (Green,…

  • Collating Fr James

    To Hyndland this afternoon for the collation of Fr James Milne as Rector of St Bride’s Church. (For those who care about ecclesiastical arcaniana, a collation happens when the bishop is the sole patron of the charge, whilst an institution happens in almost all other cases). It was a splendid occasion. Over a hundred and…

  • To the synod office

    To General Synod Office in Edinburgh yesterday, where I discovered lying prominently in the reception room (Room 1) an up to date copy of Scottish Field and a small pile of Scottish Fields for recent months. Can anyone confirm whether this is anything to do with the fact that the leader of the Scottish Tory…

  • HMS Pinafore – the Carl Rosa Opera, Theatre Royal, Glasgow

    The libretto of HMS Pinafore has at its centre a character, in the form of Sir Joseph Porter, who has risen to a status far exceding his talent. There was a certain irony then in the casting of Mr John Savident who, though he looked the part, was wading way out of his depth and…