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Marrriage Myths
Was at a very good consultation last night run by the Equality Network on proposed changes to marriage law in Scotland. I was very struck by how little people understand about marriage law already. It makes it quite difficult sometimes to have much of a coherent discussion about proposed change when everyone has muddled ideas…
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Meeting with Bishop Gregor re Same Sex Marriage consultation
Our bishops in the Scottish Episcopal Church are behaving rather differently towards the same-sex marriage consultation than the leaders of some churches. Instead of fulminating publicly about it, there is a different response which seems to me to be a bit more grown up. This week, Bishop Gregor is offering an opportunity for members of…
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The World Last Tuesday Night
I was on The World Tonight on Radio 4 last Tuesday. I was talking about the way that Scotland could be ahead of England in the same-sex marriage business and could be a place that people come to again from across the UK in order to get married when they can’t get married elsewhere. Both…
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Training Videos
I’m currently engaged in gathering together a new group of intercessors for St Mary’s. That means thinking about training for them and I’m trying something that’s new to me. The idea came from a video that Kimberly Bohan pointed me to a whilst ago. It was someone talking about teaching calculus who found that putting…
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Black Vestments
I noted Anne’s comment about seeing Bishop Kevin in splendid black vestments on Wednesday at Millport and it got me thinking about the wearing of black vestments here. I’ve tended to be lucky in that I’ve been in a couple of churches which have black vestments and which I very happily wear for the requiem…
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Requiem
We celebrate an annual requiem in St Mary’s to remember the souls of those who have died. It is on All Souls’ Day each year and that’s today, 2 November. The service takes place at 7.30 tonight. It is a service where people come to remember others who have died. We remember them in our…
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Sermon preached for All Saints 2011
One of the nights of my life which I most remember is the night that I was ordained as a priest. It was in our cathedral in Perth and was very magnificent. Someone preached a great sermon. The music was as good as it could have been. The crowd was large and their welcoming of…
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Tented Villages
Rather hoping that I don’t find the Cathedral grounds filled up by a tented village of people protesting about something when I go back to work. I’m trying not to comment too directly upon the internal workings of another cathedral. However, the PR disaster that is St Paul’s does make me want to assert this……
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The Contented Life – Spirituality and the Gift of Years by Robert Atwell
The Scottish Episcopal Church has been well blessed in recent years by a close association with the Faith in Older People Project (www.faithinolderpeople.org.uk) which works to celebrate the lives of older people and develop best practise in understanding and meeting the spiritual needs of older people and their families. It seems, upon reading this book,…
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The Pink List
Am absolutely delighted to have been included in the Independent on Sunday’s Pink List of the LGBT great and the good. It is quite a list. Pity there isn’t a party to get everyone on it together. It would be good to see more clerics on the list (there are none except Lionel Blue, I…