The scene is a very busy bookshop. A bepigtailed elderwoman protagonist approaches the information desk. She pauses for a moment and then asks…
“Excuse me, Religion is…?”
Her bearded interlocutor pauses for a moment and then replies….
“Religion is in the gold room, just up the stairs.”
He pauses once again, and then asks, “Or were you looking for a more esoteric answer?”
Personally, I’ve never had a problem with churches – my last church knew my son as a person and if anybody did have reservations they were not going to voice them about one of their own to one of their own – most members of the congregation were totally OK as one would expect.
What I have occasionally had problems with: the occasional Christian saying something which made me yearn for a pick axe, like ‘but one day we will cure homosexuals’ (over my dead body do you cure my son of being himself. Take this literally for the good of your own health.)
‘Most of this congregation are wholly accepting of gay Christians. Of course I can see it is more difficult if it is your own child’. (Only different in so far as it is better, sonny)
It should not be an issue. Except perhaps outside the church. I clean for a lovely elderly couple. Mrs is eagerly awaiting further news of my outfit for son’s civil union in the summer – she lives in terror of Mr saying something crashingly tactless. I wish I could say something to reassure her that I know Mr is just about as tactful as I am, and he is forgiven beforehand. No offence meant and none taken as ’twere.
A colleague in the diocese has died. He was a young priest. I knew him as someone who was generous and kind. He was a year older than me and died very suddenly on Friday. Another funeral I suppose.
As we gather to read the word this morning, there is one thing that is inescapable ? it is all about sheep. Sheep and shepherds everywhere.
One of the most extraordinary services I've taken here in Bridge of Allan was the week that a pipe band turned up, in full kit, for the 8 am Sunday Service. The eight o'clock is usually half a dozen of us, most more than 20 years older than me, enjoying the first, quiet light of…
The horror in Iraq grows ever deeper. The photographs of Americans torturing Iraqis have sickened me to the core. That they were doing this in one of Saddam Hussain's old torture palaces has managed to lower the moral status of the continued conflict even further.Not only that, but each horror like this makes it harder…
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