What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • What’s on your church website right now?

    Just a gentle reminder that people are looking for church services and Christmas events to go to right now. (Yes, right this minute. Today. Really.) It is worth asking what they will find if they go to your church website.

    One of the things that astonished me last Christmas was hearing people at St Mary’s saying that they had come to us because their local churches were not having any Christmas events or services.

    “Oh yes they are!” I replied in true panto style.

    “Oh no they’re not!” they replied, “we’ve looked, there’s nothing on their websites”.

    The time in the year when people are most eager to try out a new church and most welcome invitations to church seems to be around Christmas. Can I suggest that everyone reading this take a look at their own local church website and if they don’t find the details of the Christmas services prominently displayed, get hold of whoever does their website and very gently and lovingly and with every ounce of Christian compassion you can muster, bend their ear.

    That includes those responsible for diocesan websites which give a page to each of their churches. Remember, if those pages are there, google may well find them first. If people find webpages which list churches where the latest news is any older than last month (never mind last year) and where the words “No events at present” are shown in the week before Christmas, it might be said that you can’t really blame them for not turning up.

    Times of Christmas services at St Mary’s can be found here. Note that they don’t follow the same pattern as last year. We’re living on the edge, we are. 

    Right on the edge.

    ,

10 responses to “Triduum #6 The Vigil”

  1. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    Oh suppose the sleep over! The bible readings to read – the stories to tell! The living re-tellings it would invite.

    And suppose the exhaustion on Easter Day… and Monday

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Thanks Rosemary.

      BTW, after you had finished polishing the eagle this morning and had gone, I discovered that we have a pelican.

      Reply
  2. Beth Avatar
    Beth

    The pelican has not been polished, however, Rosemary, none of us being quite that tall.

    I do suspect I would like the all night vigil if we ever did it.

    Reply
  3. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    Where is the pelican??!! Up somewhere?? Oh, I would love to polish a pelican.

    I’d love to sit up half the night reading aloud and telling stories – but I fear the exhaustion. But I would never, ever resist if invited. As long I was invited and allowed to read and tell stories. It could be so fabulous. Unique. Deep. Newsworthy. (and those are all the lures I have to throw.)

    You do realise my first words are now liable to be not ‘alithos anesti’ but ‘where is the blessed pelican?’

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      I think that those of us who know where the Pelican is must keep our counsel and give Rosemary the pleasure of Pelican Spotting on Easter Day.

      What treat could be more lovely?

      Reply
  4. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    Still pelican searching – it is tough on those N rather than S – if you see me with my monocular don’t laugh – oh. all right then, go on, do laugh!

    Reply
  5. ryan Avatar
    ryan

    Ooh, is it a Pelican in its Piety, which I gather was a popular Christ-symbol in medieval europe and also amongst the Larry Graysons?

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Not only is she a Pelican in her Piety but I actually found that we have two.

      I also found that it’s possible to Pelicans in their Piety right under Rosemary’s nose and she won’t necessarily see them.

      Someone suggested to me a while ago that we should have an inventory of the flaura and fauna represented in the iconography of St Mary’s. I suspect such a task would be a revelation. There’s a badger, for example, which few see but me.

      Reply
  6. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    I am chronically unobservant – I notoriously fail to see things right under my nose. Last week I failed to see the pepper grater. It was upright on a table of less than two foot diameter. There was a table lamp, a plate and the pepper grater. I could not see it. It is sad on one whose speciality is religious architecture, isn’t it? But Low Sunday shall be find the pelican day.

    Reply
  7. Beth Avatar
    Beth

    Rosemary, I’d have nudged you in the right direction yesterday morning if I hadn’t rudely run off just as our conversation got to pelicans. (The pleasure of the hunt is all well and good, but it can get to the point of being an exercise in frustration.)

    Reply

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