What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • I nominate these guys

    baptismal candidates

    Can you change the world by pouring water over someone?

    Well, we had a go yesterday in St Mary’s with two lovely baptisms in a great service yesterday morning.

    In the course of the service, we were reminded of Moses being scooped from the water of the River Nile and going on to set a whole people free from slavery. Then we heard a bit of St Paul which reminded us that transformation of the heart was connected with accepting that we all have gifts that differ. (What a fabulous reading for a baptism). Then we had a reading from the gospels which told us that in trying to work out who Jesus was, Peter the apostle actually found himself named and commissioned for service.

    What will these children do in their lives?

    There is so much trouble in the world at the moment that it is important to be reminded of the hope and the joy that isn’t just part of what happens when new life comes into a family with the birth of a child but also the new life  and hope which is intrinsic to our faith.

    Yesterday morning was a little Easter for us at St Mary’s. And a packed church was buzzing with the ideas that new life, hope and love are real and for sharing.

    I don’t know who is going to sort the world out and allow the kingdom of love to be seen for real. But I nominate these guys, freshly baptized, and all like them who are entering the world anew. May they be a generation that brings faith, hope and love to bear on a world that needs to be baptised with every drop of goodness it can get.

    ,

4 responses to “Diversity Champions”

  1. Kenny Avatar
    Kenny

    We’re in there at 101 I think.

    Reply
  2. Kelvin Avatar
    Kelvin

    Well, wishful thinking, Kenny, but I don’t think we are.

    Reply
  3. Rosemary Avatar
    Rosemary

    Tell you what, while we tackle discriminaton on the basis of gender – and that may take some time – how about taking age discrimination head on? Because I am totally sick of being discriminated against because of my age when I know if I did not ned to give it, I might easily get the job otherwise. It is just an idea in somebody’s head …. like sexual orientation. How we do the job matters – not how young or how straight we happen to be.

    Reply
  4. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Yes Rosemary. In this area, at least, there is some progress to report in the church. We are just in the business of removing some age discrimination from the Code of Canons. We’ve been urged to do so on the grounds that that’s what employers who want to avoid prosecution do.

    I kind of wish we did things because we thought they were right rather than because we fear prosecution. It has alwas seemed rather odd to me that the same people who say that clergy are not employed in one breath insist we remove age discrimination on legal grounds in another.

    Reply

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