What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Organ & The Consultation

02/12/2013

This picture appeared on my facebook feed yesterday. It was posted by Peter Wakeford who was playing the organ yesterday morning. It shows what was going on during the service.

Now, if you had been there yesterday you would have heard some sumptuous music and would have had no idea that anything was going wrong. However, the last thing an organist wants is for the pistons to fly out when you give them a nudge.

This picture shows something fairly small going wrong with the organ but it is indicative of the state that parts of it are in. Much of the pipework – the bits that make the noise is fine. Indeed, much of the pipework is of significant historical interest. However, the bits that make the pipes play, not so much. There are huge problems with the console and with the transmission – that’s the gubbins that tells which pipe to open after the organist has pulled out a stop and attempted to play a note.

Thinking about the organ is just one bit of what the Vestry are currently consulting the congregation about. A new consultation paper called Releasing the Mission was launched last week at the Annual General Meeting. It is partly about the organ but is also about how we build capacity into St Mary’s so that we can do what we do well and even do more. We are so busy at the moment that the building is creaking at the seams. If we did a bit of development work, we would be able to help to secure the musical life of the place (which is a core part of our mission work), provide more space for the groups and networks that are buzzing, get better use of the building for the local community and also provide a more welcoming space when the diocese is holding big events at St Mary’s.

The consultation paper is available online on the website and the Vestry are hoping that lots of people will respond – whether people who are directly members of the congregation or indeed those who have a more tangential relationship with St Mary’s. The hope is that lots of different voices and constituencies can be heard. Responses can be made using the on-line form or in writing via the Cathedral office.

52 responses to “Inclusive Language – again”

ryan

11/10/2010

Kelvin – that cracked me almost as much as your last tweet on the left of your blog ;-)!

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Jimmy

11/10/2010

Ryan, although you address your comment to Kelvin like I am not there. I assume you are referring to my poem, I can assure you that it does not crack me up watching you making any opinion you may have untenable.

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1. kelvin
  
  11/10/2010
  
  No Jimmy – I think Ryan was indeed referring to my last comment, above.
  
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Jimmy

11/10/2010

Thank you Kelvin and Sorry Ryan.

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ryan

11/10/2010

No worries! Was indeed referring to the v.amusing coming out day tweets at the side.

I’m not sure there’s ever existed anyone, anywhere,at any time, of whom it could be said that *all* their opinions are ‘untenable’, so such rhetoric is dehumanising at best. Apropos nothing, I was moved to google the poetic stylings of the great David Brent. Who needs Auden? 😉
http://murfinsandburglars.com/2009/04/14/bad-poetry-for-tuesday-david-brent-edition/

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Peter

12/10/2010

Kelvin; no, I think it distracts. It simp;ly reminds us that this is how your mind works: you make connections and delight in that sort of word-play. However, to sharpen up my point. Thank you for helping me to realise that, for some, ‘family’ is not a positive word in the way in which I experience it. For my part, this willl mean that I will be more careful about its use when others might feel excluded (and therefore hurt). Mutatis mutandi can you accept that I feel offended by what seems to be merely a casual linking between family and the f word? These are sensitive areas, but sensibilities are by no means confined to those who find family a painful or unhelpful concept.

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Simon

29/10/2010

I am slightly nervous aboaut the alternatives to the 1982 Liturgy, not because I don’t share the inclusive sentiments expressed above (I do). I fear that, as so often in the history of the church, the steps we take to avoid one kind of mistake in the way we talk about God can lead us into another. The avoidance of pronouns as a measure to achieve inclusivity produces inelegant, strained and stilted English. How would it be if one were to use it in day-to-day speech? ‘I saw John this morning. I asked John’s how John’s health was. John said that John was over his flu, and hoped to be back at work on Monday’. This may not in itself seem to be a problem. But in fact, what very quickly happens when we adopt this idiom in addressing/expressing God, is that the very idea of a personal God begins to recede. My basic instinct is that the church’s language of pulbic prayer is properly anchored in that of the scriptures. There are dangers in departing from this. The perceived problem (rightly perceived) is perhaps better tackled by good teaching about the nature of God, than by linguistic contortions that produce stilted prayers, and possibly a less real and vivid idea of God.

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Melissa

15/11/2013

About the family imagery – another reason to drop it in church is for the sake ones who, like me, do actually have the signifying family relationships.

There is too much pressure on day to day life with children when that life is forced to serve as some kind of example or testimony or witness to the world – or more likely one’s church friends – about the nature of God.

I think it sours love because in that kind of scheme loving children is more fundamentally a means to an end.

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