What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Jesus – the Angry Religious Man

    Here’s what I said in the pulpit yesterday for Lent 3

    Sermon preached by Kelvin Holdsworth on 8 March 2015 from St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow on Vimeo.

    The door opened. That door at the back, with its annoying squeak. And I looked up and immediately I was afraid.

    I saw someone come in and knew that I needed to do something and do it quickly.

    I checked the clock and took off my headphones.

    Either I needed to shout at everyone to evacuate the building or I had to try to do something myself.

    I looked around and decided to walk forward and try to distract him and see what happened.

    We were about to do a Radio Broadcast. A live radio broadcast and the clock was, well, not ticking because things like that need to be silent when we are recording, but the clock was moving inexorably towards 8.10 and the moment when the red light would go on and I would say, “Good morning and welcome to St Mary’s Cathedral in the City of Glasgow, a city that is still in shock.”

    It was the day after the terrorist attack at Glasgow airport. Transport systems were in a mess. The airport was completely locked down and roads were closed all over the place. People couldn’t fly into Scotland. There was transport chaos and the police still didn’t know how many other people were at large who intended harm.

    And that door right there opened right before an advertised liver broadcast and someone unexpected came in. Someone whom I didn’t know.

    And in that instant I saw a stereotype walk into the cathedral. He was young and rather swarthy looking. I later discovered that he was indeed just back from Libya and he looked like it.

    A thin white scarf around him. Khaki camouflage clothes. And a backpack.

    It was the backpack that worried me most as I walked towards him.

    Hello I said, welcome to St Mary’s.

    These are the words that I use when I think someone is about to blow me and the cathedral up.

    Hello, welcome to St Mary’s.

    Hello, he said.

    There was a pause as I looked him up and down and he did the same to me.

    Do you mind telling me, I asked – do you mind telling me what’s in the backpack. (more…)

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4 responses to “Sunday's Lament”

  1. chris Avatar
    chris

    As I read that lament on Sunday, I was singing inside my head the wonderful Tomkins’ setting of the lament. As an alto, I could be accused of bias – the suspensions between the two alto parts are hair-raising in their beauty – but to me nothing can match it. You can hear it here

    Reply
  2. RosemaryHannah Avatar
    RosemaryHannah

    Oh dear me, yes. Let’s all wear pink and have a celebration.

    Your video camera however does not let one get anything like the quality of the voice in space experience of last Sunday. And I write as one not musical.

    Reply
  3. RosemaryHannah Avatar
    RosemaryHannah

    I think, too, it always would work best for a single male voice, because it is so heavily tied to a single male figure. It is superb writing, superbly put to music.

    I don’t want to ‘dis’ your only-too-correct comments on the space between our understanding and that of the Iron age. But I think that two things may offer a little light on how and why we read the succession narrative.

    The first is that it is an outstanding piece of writing by any standards at all. The terrible attempt by the lectionary to cut it on Sunday just pointed that up (not the first time I’ve wondered what the editors of it thought they were doing). Good story has its own power.

    Secondly, one has to ask who commissioned this account and why. I think the answer has to be Solomon’s court, as ’twere – thus not only does one have to explain why Solomon succeeded one also has to paint a very flawed but still in some ways great David. A man one might be glad to have as a father, and a man who it would be possible to offer a better alternative to. The last King, if a relative, should neither be too good or too bad. QED.

    Reply
  4. revruth Avatar
    revruth

    Oh my word! Why have I never heard this before? It is glorious and I am in love with it. There is absolutely nothing like a good lament. Dido’s Lament had better look out.

    Reply

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