What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon preached on 15 July 2012

    A few months ago, I decided to have my kitchen decorated. As many of you know, I don’t live in a church property – I live in my own flat. So it was the first time that I got to make all the decisions and all the mistakes for myself without having to negotiate with a church committee about it.

    Quite often it is difficult to get church property committees to agree to anything terribly exciting as there is always the thought in mind that one day someone else will come along and the consequent presumption that it would be better to have a colour that can be foisted on someone else rather than have a room redecorated for them.

    I remember a priest friend I knew who retired and said his hobby was going to be painting his retirement home in garish colours. After all, he said, he’d lived with (more…)

    ,

8 responses to “Mitre over the parapet moments”

  1. Kimberly Avatar
    Kimberly

    Thanks for linking +David’s post. I’d read it, and the first few comments, but missed that later discussion. It represents a new level of blog dialogue in the SEC, I think.

    Reply
  2. Rev Ruth Avatar
    Rev Ruth

    Who’ll be next, do you think?

    Reply
  3. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Thanks for the episcopal summary – I take back my previous criticisms about the bishops. They are being rather splendidly thoughtful at the moment. As was Archbish Sentamu on Radio 4’s question time 🙂

    Reply
  4. bishop david Avatar
    bishop david

    Kelvin – thanks for your linking and attention-drawing activities. It’s hard not to be aware that there is a common thread linking all of those ‘over the parapet’ contributions – which is that the tone of recent contributions from our Catholic colleagues has been unfortunate. But now that we seem to have some momentum, I hope we can move on to be a bit more successful at shaping an agenda rather than simply responding to others.

    Reply
  5. Duncan Avatar
    Duncan

    What’s the clergy equivalent of a mitre over the parapet?

    A biretta over the altar?

    Reply
  6. Stewart Avatar
    Stewart

    …only when it is snowing!!

    Reply
  7. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    I can see snow on Cruachan. Birettas may be worn.

    (See number 79 of my 100 things if you’ve no idea what Stewart is alluding to).

    Reply
  8. Phil Avatar
    Phil

    I am afraid the discussion with +David on his blog came to a sad end….have another look!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

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

Previous Posts

  • Community Council

    The Community Council was a little depressing last night. Motivated people who care about the village worn down by being unlistened to.  Someone from Stirling Council was trying to get us to form a local community development plan. The claim is that this will improve citizen action and increase involvement in local democracy. We were…

  • Light Led

    At the concert o­n Sunday night, I found myself thinking about the lighting. There was smoke and shafts of light from above. Very holy. There is always a basic idea at play in liturgy – some services are band led, some choir led, some driven by involving the laity, some by the children etc. I…

  • The Barnsley Nightingale

    Went last night to hear Kate Rusby and her band at the Macrobert Arts Centre. The band was tight, the singer was hot and the audience were up for it.It made me want to dig out the melodeon and the mandolin, neither of which I ever really learned to play as well as I wanted…

  • Wisdom – Sunday Sermon 14 September 2003

    I was listening to the coverage of the second anniversary of September 11 [2000] this week and a word jumped out at me which is what I want to focus o­n this morning. Someone was praying in New York and asking God the Creator to grant wisdom to the nations to know how to act…