What is in Kelvin's Head?

Generous Episcopacy: The Rt Rev Michael Hare Duke RIP

16/12/2014
I gather from a twitter correspondent that the Rt Rev Michael Hare Duke has died. Bishop Michael was the bishop with whom I first tested my vocation. Having been a bishop since 1969, he saw and influenced the entire modern story of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

Where to begin with memories?
- The time I sat in his study as he asked me about my vocation whilst his beloved dog, Tobermory pushed twelve full bottles of whisky from one side of the room to the other and back again. And again. And again.
- The time he was in hospital and Baa, to whom he was married, turned up on my doorstep late at night announcing a full scale emergency. It turned out that the emergency was not his health but that he was dictating faxes from his hospital bed and Baa was struggling to send a message to the Crown Prince of Jordan.
- The time and time again when he penned articles for newspapers in absolute certainty that mission in his diocese depended on people like him offering leadership, inspiration and puckish humour to the whole of society not just the people of the pews.
- The time and time again his words have brought people to God and God to the people, as he was one of the triumvirate of poet-priests who wrote the bulk of the modern Scottish Eucharistic rite.
- The extraordinary influence in the world of mental health that Michael had.
- The gay couples he was blessing 40 years ago.
- The unpredictable, chaotic, sometimes infuriating but human and humane episcopacy that he inhabited and made his own, which must today remind so many in the Scottish Episcopal Church of more generous times.
Here he is in his own words in 2003:

If sex has been one of the flash points over the last 50 years, the painful changes have also given me the joy of helping people to discover that the church does not condemn them, as they had expected, but accepts their integrity without imposing oppressive orthodoxy.

I’ve no idea how they are going to celebrate Bishop Michael at his funeral next Tuesday 23 December 2014, which will be in St Ninian’s Cathedral at 10 am. At one point the then cathedral organist kept the Fauré requiem in the repertoire specifically so it would be ready for Bishop Michael’s funeral. (A fact that led one of my predecessors as Precentor there to remark that a few choruses of Hooray and Up She Rises might well be just as appropriate).

I have a particularly strong memory of him over-consecrating vastly one Maundy Thursday. Whole chalices of consecrated wine were left over.

Not a bad way to remember him.

The world was richer for him and poorer at his passing.

Heaven seems a deliciously more giddy prospect.

8 responses to “The End of Civilization As We Know It”

Kimberly

13/12/2009

This is disaster. What will I do on my day off??

I may have to consider returning to America after all.

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marion

13/12/2009

I worked for Border Books for 10 months Kelvin. Helped clean and stock those now empty shelves. To see the store like that is awful. I love the feel and smell of a new book, and the idea of using an electronic book fills me with horror. To browse slowly, and then to make my choice of reading material is so much better and satisfying than ordering on line, and quicker.

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kelvin

13/12/2009

I suspect we must cherish our public libraries far more than we have done hitherto if we wish to retain the browsing experience.

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kimberly

14/12/2009

I have tried to cherish my public library, but it is so full of computers, and the only place to read/write/ think is a round table by the door, so I had to retreat to the Beanscene instead.

For those of us who don’t live near the Mitchell, where are the good ‘local’ libraries?

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Kelvin

14/12/2009

Well, I know I am spoilt by having the largest public reference library in Europe on my doorstep.

What I meant by cherishing local libraries was probably that we need to tell those who fund them what we want from them.

There is a consultation going on in England about it, and Rachel Cooke writes about it in a recent Observer.

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Justin

14/12/2009

The closure of the Glasgow branch is sad news indeed. The Fort Kinnaird branch in Edinburgh has been declining for a while, but even a year or so ago Borders in Glasgow was a great bookstore.

Apparently Borders has been starved of funds over the past few years, forced to promote potboilers to make up for lack of investment. There’s some hope for good high street book stores if you look at Blackwells in Edinburgh, which I think has got even better in the last couple of years. And, further afield, Foyles in London: they refurbished recently and it’s just fantastic. Models for the future, hopefully.

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kelvin

14/12/2009

I agree that Foyles’s refurbishment is a triumph. Howevrer, I still think that the idea of the big bookshop is probably going to be so rare that it will be like Wembley Stadium or Edinburgh Zoo. Of national note rather than local significance.

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Rosemary Hannah

14/12/2009

The noise level in my local library is such that I cannot think at all – and I’m used to a noisy family around me. In Borders today – incredibly depressing. It was so so much better than Waterstones. But Waterstones is better than nothing. But then again, I use Glasgow University Library more than anything else.

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