What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • A Preface for Ash Wednesday

    The following preface was written to mark the beginning of Lent and reflects the language and character of the Lenten material in the Scottish Liturgy 1982 and Daily Prayer of the Scottish Episcopal Church

    Dear Friends in Christ, it is the custom of Christian people to prepare to mark the time of Christ’s passion and resurrection by a season of penitence and fasting.

    The church calls each of us during these forty days to repent of all that causes harm to ourselves, harm to our earthly dwelling place and harm to our relationship with God.

    By carefully keeping these days, Christians take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and devotion. In turning our hearts towards God, we discover anew the boundless grace of God.

    For God will help us to create beauty even within the turmoil of this chaotic world and will help us to gather a harvest of joy and gladness from lives of sorrow and care. Today and every day, God calls the wandering exile home.

    We are invited therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.

2 responses to “Election Thoughts”

  1. David | Dah•veed Avatar
    David | Dah•veed

    I can tell you from sad experience that our ten years of true multiparty democracy has mostly resulted in a federal legislature that has been paralyzed to accomplish anything for the nation. This sad state of affairs is seducing folks to return to the party of our former one party dictatorship of the previous 70 years.

    Reply
  2. Andrew Heatlie Avatar
    Andrew Heatlie

    Dah.veed, one of the current cynical jokes has to be David Cameron talking of ‘strong government’ when what he’s describing is right-wing insensitivity and selfishness; from this the need is daylight-clear for multiparty co-operation in the whole community’s interest. But it has to be that genuinely; in Scotland with the incompetent SNP in lead-role we see only too well how Government deception and chicanery have to be challenged at every turn. A good PR electoral system does not guarantee reputable good government, only public vigilance and Freedom of Information!

    Kelvin, it’s much easier to focus together behind a party political banner than in religious matters, because politics is a much more restricted dimension of life over which to establish provisional priorities, whereas religious perspectives encompass EVERYTHING, and no way can we expect to see more than a little partial bit of the picture this side of the grave, let alone agree on the specifics; so it’s more like working together on an open agenda than promoting a preset political campaign?

    Reply

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