What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Last Year’s Predictions

    Each year I try to make some predictions at New Year. And each year I take a look back on Hogmanay to see how I did.

    Here’s the rundown of how I did last year.

    1 Those who voted YES in the Scottish Referendum will continue to behave as though they won. This may be unhelpful.
    2 Those who voted NO in the Scottish Referendum will continue to behave as thought he referendum never happened. This may be unhelpful.

    Well, I think I got these both right. I don’t see much sign that we’ve moved on from the referendum. Alan McManus’s magazine article was a breath of fresh air, but a rare one.

    3 There will, I fear, be a Tory Prime Minister at the end of 2015.

    Bang on with this one.

    4 The Liberal Democrats will retain 10 – 14 seats in the House of Commons.

    Well, I got the detail wrong – the Lib Dems did even worse in the General Election. When I made this prediction, most people were predicting a Lib Dem presence of 30 – 36, I think. My prediction of electoral catastrophe was just not taken seriously by those whom I know who should have taken it most seriously. I’m claiming this as a very near miss.

    5 Nick Clegg will lose his seat and be Lord Clegg by the end of the year.

    That’s a miss. Nick Clegg kept his seat if not his party.

    6 The Labour Party will not be led by a Milliband by the end of the year.

    Well I didn’t see Jeremy Corbyn coming but it was clear to me that Ed Milliband wasn’t going anywhere fast. Remember though that right up until the General Election, most of the polls predicted a hung parliament and uncertainty about who would be the PM.

    7 The Church of Scotland will begin a new procedure under the barrier act to determine whether to accept ministers in same-sex partnerships who are married (ie not merely in Civil Partnerships).

    Got this one bang on. Presbyteries have just voted by a narrow majority to send this back to the General Assembly for decision in May.

    8 There will be legal victories for those seeking to extend Civil Partnerships to straight couples.

    Well, we’ve not see as many legal victories as I expected. However, we’ve got a rather uncomfortable consultation just completed in Scotland in which the Scottish Government announced before consulting, that it didn’t want to do what a lot of people want them to do. I hope it sticks to its guns though and refuses to allow straight couples (or indeed future gay couples) Civil Partnerships.

    9 Elizabeth Warren will become a household name.

    Well, this one didn’t really come to pass. My fantasy of a dream Hilary/Elizabeth ticket doesn’t look like becoming a reality either.

    10 (Some) straight liberals will lead the charge (such as it is) for (something less than) LGBT equality, (sometimes). Believe it or not, I’m excited by this and it is an improvement. [Remember that in 2011 I predicted that “No straight liberal in the church will feel the need to sacrifice anything at all for the gay friends they purport to support.” Things are changing a bit].

    I’m claiming this one as a win. I could feel it all around me at Greenbelt but I’ve felt it in other places too. Increasingly, the things I’ve been fighting for are becoming mainstream. Deo Gratias.

    11 Advances in e-learning in churches.

    This one is a miss. I’ve dabbled a bit myself but there’s no real sign of denominations doing what they need to do if they are going to teach their people any better in the future than they have done in the past.

9 responses to “The Lament Question”

  1. kimberly Avatar
    kimberly

    ask it in the singular, and the answer is: because you’re a four.

    you’ll have me playing the funeral ikos next.

    Reply
  2. kimberly Avatar
    kimberly

    the other answer is about possibility being revealed in limits.

    Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Its not just me though, and not just fours.

    Reply
  4. Aaron Orear Avatar
    Aaron Orear

    I think because sorrow touches the core of the human condition – we are mortal but can perceive immortality. “He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.” (Eccl. 3:11)

    Reply
  5. Erp Avatar
    Erp

    I understand Aristotle talks about catharsis and various philosophers have followed up on that idea.

    Perhaps it arouses sadness both from the art itself but also from our own sources festering within and allows us to let go. We feel better for the letting go, the lessening of our own internal sadness, and so perceive the art as beautiful.

    Reply
  6. RosemaryHannah Avatar
    RosemaryHannah

    Kimberly was there before me. However, even I, a nine, can sometimes see the beauty in sad things. For me they do two things (may be more but two are most obvious). The first is the catharsis thing. The second is to make me less lonely. Look, here am I weeping, but all around me people sit in the same sorrow. It is not just my sorrow – I am not alone.

    I have long thought there is another answer, one I do not properly understand but I have (I think – and who am I to think it). Deep in God there is a huge well of sorrow. Unless we experience sorrow we cannot understand God. When we sorrow we tap into that well, and become closer to him.

    And being a nice cheerful nine, I will now add that I live in hope that having sorrowed with him, we will share also and even more fully in the joy which swallows the sorrow. Delete this last paragraph from your mind on reading, it will only spoil the joy of the sorrow.

    Reply
  7. Elizabeth Avatar
    Elizabeth

    Edgar Allan Poe said the most beautiful thing in the world is a beautiful, dead woman. Nice, eh?

    Reply
  8. Ritualist Robert Avatar
    Ritualist Robert

    Surely it’s because the concept of beauty is independent from concepts such as ‘sadness’ and ‘happiness’ – just as a G major chord might be loud or soft, but that volume has no effect on its G major-ness.

    Reply
  9. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    I remember Augustine saying (don’t ask me where) that for a picture to be beautiful it requires dark colours as well as bright.

    There is also a hint of an answer in this poem by Edwin Muir:

    Yet still from Eden springs the root
    As clean as on the starting day.
    Time takes the foliage and the fruit
    And burns the archetypal leaf
    To shapes of terror and of grief
    Scattered along the winter way.
    But famished field and blackened tree
    Bear flowers in Eden never known.

    Blossoms of grief and charity
    Bloom in these darkened fields alone.
    What had Eden ever to say
    Of hope and faith and pity and love
    Until was buried all its day
    And memory found its treasure trove?
    Strange blessings never in Paradise
    Fall from these beclouded skies.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Advent

    Advent is here – it is the longest that Advent can be too, four full weeks, with Christmas on a Sunday this year. Every time I go into church I’ll be enjoying this:

  • It is a worldwide thing you know

    One of the things that is interesting about the campaign for Equal Marriage is that it appears to be an idea whose time has come internationally not simply here in Scotland. Here’s how it looks in Australia: Don’t forget if you want to make a response to the Scottish Government’s consultation, one of the easiest…

  • The Mothers’ Union and Marriage

    One of the most interesting submissions to the Scottish Government’s consultation on Same-Sex Marriage is surely going to be the one from the Mothers’ Union. I’m not going to rehearse the articles that I’ve put up on this blog about the MU and its attitude to all things gay in the past, but suffice it…