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The sacrament lottery
One of the consequences of decisions being made in different jurisdictions which don’t align with other geographical entities is that you end up with what we tend to call in the UK a postcode lottery. The most frequent use of the term is in describing a situation whereby someone can get treatment for a medical…
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Was Jesus nice to women?
I’ve been thinking about that gospel reading that we had on Sunday all week. Here at St Mary’s I read the central part of the reading, the dialogue with the woman at the well as a dialogue between my voice and that of a female member of the congregation. You learn new things by the…
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Opera Review – Macbeth – Scottish Opera
Here’s my review of Scottish Opera’s latest production, as posted at Opera Britannia. The exclamation marks are obviously not my own and have been added by an editor. Rating: Scottish Opera’s revival of Dominic Hill’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth is something of a mixed bag that is saved by several confident performances, most notably that…
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Sermon – At the Well
Here’s this morning’s sermon. I went a little off piste from the text, but essentially what I wanted to say is in both the video and the words below. Let me begin this morning with a poem. Just a short poem – so slight that you need to listen or it will pass you by.…
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Who is the happiest of the them all?
Mirror, mirror, on the wall…. Who is the happiest of them all? Turns out the answer is clergy. According to the BBC, the government is beginning to include measures of happiness in what it attempts to do and part of that has been trying to quantify who the happiest people are in society. Turns out…
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St Augustine
I saw this painting recently in London. It purports to be St Monica being handed her newly born son who was to become Augustine of Hippo. It seems to me that this painting explains much.
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Public Opinion and Same-Sex Marriage – John Curtice
A while ago we had a real treat at St Mary’s. Prof John Curtice gave a talk about public opinion and same-sex marriage. It was one of those forums which was very special for those who were there. There simply isn’t anyone who knows how to read and interpret public opinion as John can and…
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Say a prayer for Fred Phelps
For the last few years, the Westboro Baptist Church has become famous for picketting funerals and spreading a message of offensive hatred. There can be few who haven’t seen the “God Hates Fags” posters. When they first appeared, it seemed to be so vile that it might be a parody, but no, it turned out…
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Adam and Eve – Sermon
Here’s the video of yesterday’s sermon – somewhere along the way I’ve managed to lose the text, but the video is here in full. It is about Adam and Eve and about how their story is about now not then. There’s a nod to temptation and a chocolate boutique. I had the atonement in the…
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Read thurible.net by email
One of the surprises for me in keeping the blog over the last year or so has been how many people have taken up the opportunity to read thurible.net by email. I’d kind of thought that email was old fashioned technology and in many ways it is. But lots of people use old fashioned tech…