Blog

  • Please don't take him just because you can

    Got back in late last night after the first meeting of the St Mary’s LGBT group. Well, it was the first meeting for a while to be truthful. Similar meetings have been going on in St M’s for years. I was learning last night that there used to be a gay clergy group which met…

  • What do clergy do?

    Here are some of the things that I am or have been doing this week: Two weddings Attending the formal opening of the new BBC building Being around St Mary’s for Doors Open Day LGBT Discussion Group (starts tonight at 8 pm in the Synod Hall) Trip to Aberdeen for Bob Gillies’s consecration as new…

  • Doors Open

    Before and after a wedding that I was taking at Glasgow University Chapel, I dropped in to St Mary’s to say hello to some of the people who were there for the Doors Open event. All across the city today and tomorrow lots of buildings are open to visitors and we are one of them.…

  • In a moment …

    How many times does wonder stop you in your tracks? How often do you find yourself stopping speaking in the middle of a sentence and gazing at something? It happened to me today. Someone showed me two pictures on a computer monitor. Perfect circles ablaze with colour and life. It was a pair of photos…

  • Quality Hotel in Perth

    To Perth on Monday and Tuesday for a meeting of the Information and Communications Board of the Scottish Episcopal Church. It is fascinating being on such a body at a time when the bloggers are in the ascendency. However, you almost have to feel sorry for the Quality Hotel in Perth. Almost but not quite.…

  • A gap

    It seems to me that there is nothing in Canon Law about flower arranging. Am I right?

  • They that were lost are found!

    O happy day! They that were lost are found! Regular readers will know that I swim at the Arlington Baths Club. It is a wonderful and highly particular Glasgow institution. It works like this: I go in to swim, give my baths number to the attendant who hands me commodious bath sheet and towel, I…

  • French Horn needed for Sunday morning

    Hey, anyone know of a French Horn Player who would play at St Mary’s on Sunday morning? I’m after someone who is about Grade 8 standard who would come and join in with a psalm we are planning to do at the 1030 service. Needs to be a competent brass player who is sober enough…

  • Random advice to someone newly ordained

    Treat everyone as though they are an adult. Especially children. When any hand is held out for communion, think WWJD? Don’t diss the Mothers’ Union You have been given the power to bind and loose. That means you have to say yes to everyone all the time, sometimes by saying no.

  • Guild of Servers

    To Hyndland yesterday to the annual festival of the Scottish Guild of Servers. Having previously chuntered to the guild office bearers about having the service in far-flung places (including our companion diocese of Argyll and The Isles, over the water), I decided that I had better turn up yesterday when it was just a couple…