What is in Kelvin's Head?

Ordinary Sunday in Eastertide

11/05/2013

We’ve a rare ordinary Sunday tomorrow – looking at the diary for the next few weeks it is one high festival after another.

Next Sunday 19 May is Pentecost. The invitation is to everyone to wear national dress if they have it and on that day we all say the Lord’s Prayer in our language. There will be a ceilidh in the evening after Choral Evensong.

The week after, it is Trinity Sunday which will be marked, not least, by a Te Deum at Evensong. After the morning service, Prof John Curtice will be speaking about public opinion and the current proposals to change marriage law to allow same-sex couples to get married.

Corpus Christi follows on the Thursday after that. Some brothers and sisters in the faith seem intent on moving this to the Sunday – don’t know why, we’ve no trouble gathering a crowd for the festivities. We’ll be celebrating with the full ceremonies of the feast, flower petals, procession, Benediction and all and the Bishop of Argyll and The Isles will be with us to preach the word.

Once we’ve enjoyed that delight, we are straight into a month of great wonders as it is the West End Festival. The brochure is out now and I’ll be getting the details all up on the website in due course. There will be more forum meetings than we’ve ever had before (including one with Frikki Walker, who is world-famous around here as our Director of Music) and wall to wall gorgeousness from the choir.

It is hard work having so much fun!

11 responses to “We drink from our own wells”

fr dougal

27/03/2011

Excellent! 1st class – wanna be Bishop of Edinburgh?

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1. kelvin
  
  27/03/2011
  
  So far as I can ascertain, almost everyone wants to be Bishop of Edinburgh.
  
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Kimberly

27/03/2011

except you, I should think.

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1. kelvin
  
  27/03/2011
  
  I love what I do. The job of being bishop of anywhere seems to me to be far more grim than most people realise.
  
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fr dougal

28/03/2011

Yes, I always think the Bishop’s theme song ought to be “naebuddy loves, awbuddy hates me, think Ah’m gauuny eat worms!”

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Joe

30/03/2011

You took a chance that day Kelvin and it paid off for the good. As a gay man brought up in the RC Church, when I was 17 and very confused I thought that my church and God hated me because of my sexuality (obviously not my choice). I was actually told at that age by a priest in Glasgow that I would go to hell if I had sex with my then lover. I’ve seen many suicides over the years because of the fact that some people I knew could not reconcile their religion with their sexuality. Note I said religion not faith. The God I have a relationship with loves me as I am, whether human beings who claim to know better than me what he thinks of me condemn me does’nt bother me. I’ll let God judge not them.

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Stew

30/03/2011

Fine line between drawing from one’s own well and ignoring all the other wells. Quite often I get the feeling that some people believe everything they need, all of the raw materials, are within and I can imagine that too much faith in one’s own well is the cause of much wayward preaching also. I hope that this lesson, which I am sure worked well in your case, would not become a maxim for general teaching and preaching,
without some safety clauses…. Have I misunderstood?

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1. kelvin
  
  30/03/2011
  
  Well, Stew, perhaps you have misunderstood, I’m not sure.
  
  I wasn’t talking about what is necessary and sufficient for salvation, if that’s what you are worried about.
  
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ryan

30/03/2011

Great post!
Stew: Is the very existence of legitimate ” other wells” not, in and of itself, an argument against the dichotomies and simplistic certainties of the One True Well good old bad old days? I read much of the post as tracing the realisation that “neutral” readings are no such thing, and that the wells of teachers and human authorities are no more (or, of course, less) intrinsically real than our wells. The passage beginning ” I had drunk from” suggests someone adding to their knowledge of wells – not exchanging one set of wells for a single well, and therefore choosing a literally less well-informed world view ;-). Although even that would be a significant experience as other people’s experiences with their own wells might not be things they could usefully communicate to others. The blog post IMHO traces an expansion of (not just) knowledge, the opposite of diminuition from a wider to a smaller view. Although maintaining safety around wells is of course important 😉

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Ruth

01/04/2011

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mabroccoli/5578370888/in/stream

When the sermon was over, he dived round the back, hoping to catch you as you left the laptop. I’m delighted that I’m still reaching a feline audience.

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1. kelvin
  
  01/04/2011
  
  Thanks Ruth – very good.
  
  Reply