Today has been designated as National Coming Out Day.
There’s been so much going on recently in the media and social media about gay bishops in the Church of England.
This seems to me to say it in a more elegant way than all the letters to the press, editorials, blog posts and twitter posts by the score.
The comments by JN1034 are very interesting especially considering the practice I observed in Hong Kong – see http://bonnyton.fotopic.net/p39681149.html
V Rev Kelvin Holdsworth, dear sibling in Christ: Thank you for bestowing upon us your esteemed Theological Thurible Award, albeit we’re far from worthy. Though we’re overcome by surprise of your kindness and gratitude, we hope that which we caused you to ponder are good things, all to the glory of the Triune One and of God’s gods. Considering that censing is a multi-millennia-old religious convention, we’ve a deep appreciation of thuribles in our shared traditions, and for their practical mystical expressions in the daily lives of the faithful. Censing marks our homes and families, our weeks and years, our lives and hearts, our Church and God. Censing is a constant element of our histories imprinting a sensual memory of the life of the whole incarnate Church, both at home and in our parishes. When we smell it in our local parishes, our olfactory senses read the aroma as homemade; everything connects; nothing in our world seems detached from God and from us; we transcend spacetime and the universe is one at that fragrant ephemeral instant. And if we smell incense in another’s home, or at a different parish, it all comes together as an unified moment, and we are home wherever we are. We pray God continues to bless you with grace and mercy as you lead your community at St Mary’s Cathedral. Remember us in your prayers. Yours in the shared service of Christ our Lord, JN1034+++
Angels and thuribles, that reminds me, I have a rescue to plan. I wonder if my daughter left any camouflage paint!
We had some theological students in church yesterday who had come as a group to observe our goings on. This is something that I got involved in last year too. They go around several churches and then invite the preacher into their class which takes place later in the week to discuss what happened. I…
I managed to resist the temptation to preach on the text, “Lazarus, Come Out!” this morning. Instead, here is what I did say: I want to begin this morning, not with a story, but with a stained glass window. It isn’t a window in this building. No, it is in the place where I first…
I spent part of this afternoon at the 25th anniversary of Glasgow SPRED. Know what that is? I certainly didn’t, but I do now. It is an initiative in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese and it was lovely to spend the afternoon in the company of the RC Church at its best. To be precise, the…
One of the things that I have to be aware of at St Mary’s is that there are always quite a lot of people there who have not come from an Episcopal background. That means that when it comes to festivals, there are folk who don’t know what to expect. (Former Roman Catholics are exceptions.…
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