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Royal Conservatoire of Scotland – Cosi Fan Tutti Review
This review originally appeared on Opera Britannia’s website. The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland have produced some excellent operas in recent years, which makes the disappointment of this production of Così fan tutte all the more acute. Singing that was generally competent never managed to overcome the obstacle of an orchestra seemingly intent on sabotaging a…
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Outrage is not a mission strategy
Well, the days are passing by since the Primates of the Anglican Communion issued their communique at the end of their meeting in Canterbury. The reaction to the communique has been swift and loud. Very many people whom I know are outraged by it and voicing their anger all over the internet. I feel curiously…
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On Friendship – for St Aelred’s Day and the Primates
This is an extract from a sermon I preached in 2009 after visiting Rievaulx, the place associated with St Aelred who has his feast day today. The central idea is that we would have a better world if the church had made a sacrament out of friendship rather than marriage. It seems particularly appropriate to…
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A Welcome Forest of Deans
Last weekend an open letter emerged from within the Church of England which asked the two archbishops in England to take a message to the Primates’ Conference acknowledging that the Church has failed in its duty of care to LGBTI members of the Body of Christ worldwide and calling for repentance. The whole letter is…
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Conversations with Catholics (and others)
Over the next couple of weeks, I’m trying something new and a bit different at St Mary’s. I’m offering coffee and a chat to a couple of different kinds of people who are always present within the congregation. Tomorrow morning (Saturday 9 January 2016) I’m having a coffee morning for people in the congregation who…
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New Year Predictions 2016
Following recent revelations, this will be the year that former Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey finally shuts up. Expect no silly press releases on the eve of Church of England Synod. (From Carey anyway). The Columba Declaration recently leaked to the press will not in fact be adopted unamended by both the Church of Scotland…
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Last Year’s Predictions
Each year I try to make some predictions at New Year. And each year I take a look back on Hogmanay to see how I did. Here’s the rundown of how I did last year. 1 Those who voted YES in the Scottish Referendum will continue to behave as though they won. This may be…
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Christmas Day Sermon 2015
It is quite a number of years since I spent Christmas with my parents. Ordination tends to give one other things to do at this time of the year than to race about the country trying to keep a family Christmas. And in any case, I rather like the Christmas I keep these days. The…
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Midnight Mass Sermon 2015
So where did you learn the Christmas story? Where did you first hear about the baby in the manger? I’ve been thinking about this a lot since a sermon that one of my colleagues preached earlier this year in which he suggested that in fact more people know about the story of Bethlehem from the…
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A Christmas Message for the LGBT+ Communities
This piece appeared first at Kaleidoscot, an online publication for Scotland’s LGBT communities. The first Christmas after I was ordained nearly 20 years ago, I happened to come down sick before Christmas. My senior colleague had to take all the services instead of us sharing them and all I could do was drag myself to…