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Derrida is dead
I suppose, now that I think about it, that Jaques Derrida is one of the biggest influences on the way I preach. May his souls rest in peace.
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Sermon – 10 October 2004
There is a lot going on in the story of the 10 lepers being healed by Jesus in this morning?s gospel. Often this text is preached about as though it were all about thanksgiving, One might even get the idea that the Lord is grumpy that only one out of ten have come back and…
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Cat politics
The Conservative Party really are in trouble. I asked the cat what she had thought of the Tory conference. She has always been a Tory supporter and very dismissive of my campaigning. Flicking her tail into a pound sign, she announced that she had changed her allegiance. Furthermore, she indicated very clearly that she thinks…
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Choosing Hymns
One of the most difficult jobs to do well as a priest is choosing hymns. Just enough that is familiar to people to feel comfortable, just enough that is new to stop us getting caught in a rut. Music needs to be singable and the words need to make some kind of sense. We want…
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Autumn
I can never decide whether I like the autumn. I like it in theory, at a distance. The colours and the freshness of the air are lovely, but the dark nights drawing in. Oh, the dark nights.
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Film Festival 2
It was Cole Porter day at my film festival yesterday. High Society in the afternoon and the new biopic De-lovely in the evening. Both showing on the big screen in Falkirk. The music for both was sublime, whatever the merits of the films themselves. I’m not sure that I entirely bought the idea that Cole…
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Film Festival
The opening movie in the Film Festival last night was Ae Fond Kiss – Ken Loache’s new inter-racial romance set in Glasgow. Having spent two days last week going backwards and forwards to Pollockshields, it was rather fun to see real life portrayed in a film. Arranged marriages, children not doing what their parents expect…
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Harvest Sermon – 3 October 2004
The interesting thing about harvest is that people have become more and more keen on celebrating it the further they have got from being the ones who gather in the crops in the fields. The harvest festival is a festival which most people think goes back into the mists of time. We imagine joyful peasants…
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Psephology
Do not read if you are of a nervous political disposition.So, Jody Dunn made it a near run thing in Hartlepool last night. She achieved a swing of 18%, which is very impressive.In Stirling, it would take a swing of about 16 % (Lab to Lib Dem) for a Liberal Democrat to take the seat. If…
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Ordinations
Several people I know have been ordained this week. Inevitably, it makes me think about my own ordinations, first to the diaconate and then to the priesthood. Tomorrow I’m going to Glasgow to a first Eucharist. No doubt I’ll be thinking of my own first mass. It was outside in the open air, in the…