What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • RIP Jim Cotter

    In the middle of the busy days of Holy Week comes the news that Jim Cotter has died.

    Jim was a poet-priest – someone for whom words were as important as breathing. He wrote prayers in which unicorns danced.

    He was also I think the first out gay priest I ever met, coming to preach in St Andrews about 25 years ago. I met him too in his house in Sheffield. I know also that he spoke here in St Mary’s many years ago and must have been part of the story that has led us to be the congregation that we are.

    Jim was talking about gay clergy being out and living in the open years before anyone else did. Indeed, some of the things I talk about which people still think are rather radical, Jim was talking about a generation or more before. He was a visionary and a prophet and suffered a lot in life because of it.

    Many, many people will have copies of his night prayers sitting beside the bed. I used them last night and thought about how many people have so much to be grateful for because of Jim Cotter.

    God be in my gut and in my feeling
    God be in my bowels and in my forgiving
    God be in my loins and in my swiving
    God be in my lungs and in my breathing
    God be in my heart and in my loving

    God be in my skin and in my touching
    God be in my flesh and in my yearning
    God be in my blood and in my living
    God be in my bones and in my dying
    God be at my end and at my reviving

    May he rest in peace now at last.

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4 responses to “Book Review”

  1. Peter O Avatar
    Peter O

    I think you miss the point of the book Kelvin. It’s meant to be a guide to listening to *all* sides of the debate, not just those you agree with. That’s what makes the last section so good, because it forces us to deal realistically not just with the genuine evidence on the causality of homosexuality, but also the fact that some people *do* see remarkable change in their sexual orientation (and that others don’t).

    I wrote my own review here.

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    We were not called by the last Lambeth Conference to listen to all sides in the debate.

    Reply
  3. ryan Avatar
    ryan

    Ruth Gledhill has posted a PDF of the whole thing, for those interested:
    http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/files/Final.pdf

    Reply
  4. Rosemary Avatar
    Rosemary

    I’ve now read the ‘scientific’ section – thanks for the link ryan – and I thought it was mixed. I thought Glynn Harrison made a serious attempt at dispassion. I think it is a fair point that any person must decide their own priorities, and the final argument must be between theologies, not sciences. I was not so impressed by David de Pomerai – though one could hardly quarrel with his conclusion that we simply do not know exactly what makes one person homosexual and the next heterosexual. However his whole argument was bedevilled by assumptions that, e.g. homosexual men will be more effeminate than straight ones. Anecdotal evidence instantly produces examples where it is the straight male siblings who are drama queens and run from spiders, while gay ones take it all in their stride.

    It must be accepted that both gay and straight people live with voluntary or enforced celibacy with no ill effects – and that some people can change their sexual orientation and live happily with the change. What I found truly heart rending were the desperate attempts and the high cost to those who actually did succeed in changing orientation – however much Harrison denies the skin colour analogy, it reminded me painfully of those endless jars of skin lightener which encrust Sri Lankan chemists, where beauty is measured in skin tone. Because whether or not genetic, orientation is not a simple free choice. But I suppose the answer would be: ‘And what is?’

    The final point, though, is always the same. Is Christianity a religion of an authoritative book, or an authoritative Person?

    Reply

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