What is in Kelvin's Head?

New Provosting

31/08/2012

There’s a new provosting tonight in Oban and I’m carefully packing the Cope of Glory.

There’s certainly a sense of purpose and excitement about the Diocese of Argyll and The Isles these days.

[Trivia point – the definite article in the name of the diocese is capitalised for the Episcopal diocese of Argyll and The Isles but not capitalised for the Roman Catholic diocese of Argyll and the Isles. You learn these things whilst editing a magazine].

It is always exciting to witness the start of a new ministry which inevitably means someone landing in the middle of a load of other ministries and working out how to relate to them all and trying to help weave them together into one coherent whole.

When you start working in a church it is often the little things that give you the most stress. You can read the accounts and meet the vestry, but who tells you what order the first part of the liturgy works on your first Sunday. Somehow everyone expects you to know the little things.

I remember when I arrived at St Mary’s I wanted to know one small liturgical detail about the start of the service. I asked around. One person told me we did it one way. Another person told me we did it precisely the opposite way. And a third smiled sweetly and said, “We do it whatever way you want, Provost”. All I wanted to know was what was the norm.

There is a legend here that one of my predecessors was once told that he had made 35 changes to the liturgy when he arrived and was surprised to hear that he had made any of them. I can see how that happens, and people think that the slightest change is a point of principle.

Down south, the person who runs a cathedral is a Dean. They are sometimes thought of as “the first priest in the diocese” and occasionally act as a kind of shop steward, able to articulate in a particular way what it is like to be a priest with charge in a diocese and sometimes murmur in the bishop’s ear the concerns of those who don’t get the same chances to do so.

There can be some of that up here too. But here there’s that distinctive word. Up here, the word Provost has its roots in the latin and hints of someone who has been pushed to the front.

My good wishes to Provost Nicki McNelly as she takes up her appointment in Oban. Provosting is an exciting business and, as cathedrals take their particular and a distinctive ministry I believe in. Cathedrals occupy an interesting place in the life of the modern church which I don’t think many could see 20 years ago.

Welcome, Nicki to one particular front line of mission and ministry.

9 responses to “Biobank – an ethical question”

Rev Ruth

25/10/2007

I’ve been asked too. And I got so excited – you know how I love all things medical. My mind had already raced off into the realms of them finding that I had some mysterious disease… But now that you put it like that, I guess I’d better give it some more thought.

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Raspberry Rabbit

25/10/2007

I haven’t been asked. Radical foreign clerics must not be on the list.

I’d be hesitant to do it anyway. Too much information is being stored about us in anticipation of the day when it might prove useful. Best to keep your head down.

RR

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Tim

25/10/2007

Eeek. I saw the phrase “Do you want to do something good today? Not just for yourself, but for our children and our children’s children?” near the top of the page and instantly the thought occurred, “what’s the potential cost? Where are the privacy controls?” Not as though anyone’s asked me anyway, but that sort of thing worries me from the outset too.

A little more investigation shows http://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/faqs/confidentiality.php , particularly #5 etc; it seems too vague, just a gloss to placate the masses. I don’t want `computers unconnected to the internet’; I’d want a guarantee that they never will be, that no floppy disks or other methods will result in data coming off them, and that they’re well secured in a bunker somewhere.

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chris

25/10/2007

We’re involved. My sister-in-law first; she asked my husband; we discussed it and decided the potential for knowledge and research into – for example – the hereditary factor in clinical depression – made it something we wanted to do. Our sons have also expressed a willingness to participate. I personally don’t care about what happens to my DNA (other than its continuation in my family!) and if some good can come out of it then that’s just fine. I trust scientists every bit as much (or as little) as I trust anyone else.

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asphodeline

25/10/2007

Have you seen Heroes???? Sounds like a sneaky plot to find more 🙂

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kelvin

25/10/2007

I have not seen Heroes. Is it about eugenics?

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asphodeline

26/10/2007

Ah. It has a hint of eugenics. Part of the plotline involves some form of research into the DNA of people with supernatural powers!

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kelvin

26/10/2007

Ah, I see why you associated it with me.

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Andrew

19/03/2008

My wife I also each received one of the so called invitations today, my first reaction was anger over the wording of the invitation which by telling me I have a “provisional appointment” assuming I am gullible enough to fall for the use of false authority syndrome.

I am really concerned a lot of less literate people will not fully understand the “invitation” and assume it something they have to do.

What really makes my blood boil is the that even if you don’t want to take part you have to reply to get your name removed from the records, this raises real civil liberties issues.

The thing is if I had been asked to participate in I a nice way I would have been very keen to do so, however the whole tone of the letter stinks of authoritarianism and reminds me of the kind of thing the Nazis were doing in the mid 1930s.

If you get one of these invitation say no and tell them why — or better still rip it up.

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