What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon – Christmas 2

    Here’s what I had to say in the pulpit yesterday:

    Video first…

    When I was young, Christmas was pretty much the same every year at our house. The morning would comprise of morning worship and after that there would be lots of driving to pick up older relatives so that the family might be together at Christmas.

    Eventually gathered together around a specially prepared festive table we would eat and manage to get through vast quantities of food before listening to the Queen at three o’clock. And then and only then, unwrapping presents.

    The thing that I want to remember today is one of my older maiden aunts. Actually a great aunt, who was always with us at Christmas.

    The thing I remember was something that she used to say as we prepared to tuck into the food, glorious food, that my mother had prepared.

    “Do you know,” said that maiden aunt each year, (more…)

    , ,

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

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.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

Previous Posts

  • Computer afternoon

    In mild frustration at my new prescription swimming goggles arriving on an afternoon when the pond is designated as women only, I turned to matters of information technology. Now for some time, the computer has been held together with bits of string inside, to which blu-tac was added recently. Indeed, it had getting so hot…

  • Please don't take him just because you can

    Got back in late last night after the first meeting of the St Mary’s LGBT group. Well, it was the first meeting for a while to be truthful. Similar meetings have been going on in St M’s for years. I was learning last night that there used to be a gay clergy group which met…

  • What do clergy do?

    Here are some of the things that I am or have been doing this week: Two weddings Attending the formal opening of the new BBC building Being around St Mary’s for Doors Open Day LGBT Discussion Group (starts tonight at 8 pm in the Synod Hall) Trip to Aberdeen for Bob Gillies’s consecration as new…

  • Doors Open

    Before and after a wedding that I was taking at Glasgow University Chapel, I dropped in to St Mary’s to say hello to some of the people who were there for the Doors Open event. All across the city today and tomorrow lots of buildings are open to visitors and we are one of them.…