• Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!

    There have been quite a lot of new hits on the blog over the last few days, not least because of the Rudolphus post, which is currently receiving comments about the quality of the Latin. The comments are in Latin too.

    Seeing all these new hits come in, I decided it was time to update the About page on this blog. It now says a little more about what I do than the two line one that was there before which just had my job title and links to twitter and facebook.

    If you are reading this as a new blog subscriber a particular shout out to you. Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome! Thank you for signing up to receive updates by email. I hope you enjoy reading all this. Do join in the comments. This is a lively community which I learn from and which often makes me laugh.

    This is what I’ve said on the new About page. (Many thanks, as usual to Gordon Smith who took most of the photographs).


     

    head and shouldersHi, I’m Kelvin Holdsworth. Welcome to my blog. I’ve been writing here since August 2003. I’m the Provost of St Mary’s Cathedral in Glasgow – a busy church with a progressive ethos in the inner West End of the city. Glasgow is a place that I love and have a strong connections with both through my family and my childhood – I went to school just a few miles outside of the city.
    After school, which I finished back in Yorkshire where I was born, I studied Mathematics and Computing at Manchester Polytechnic before going on to study theology at the University of St Andrews and the University of Edinburgh.

    elevating hostI enjoy my work – celebrating the Eucharist as I’m doing here, preaching and leading a busy, interestsing congregation which is gathered from all over the world. This blog is an extension of my preaching ministry sometimes – I tend to post my sermons here for all to see and I enjoy the debates that sometimes arise in the comments.
    Some of the themes of my ministry have been cathedral ministry (I worked in St Ninian’s Cathedral in Perth for my curacy), working with students (I’ve twice been involved in University Chaplaincy) and finding ways to make the liturgy of the church exciting and fun. I’m unashamed of having learned more about liturgy from the theatre than from the church. Human rights are important to me – I believe that everyone was made in the image and likeness of God and the consequence of that is an imperative to work for justice.
    pink list logoThe Independent of Sunday was kind enough to include me in their Pink List – their annual celebration of movers and shakers in the UK who come from the LGBT communities. I’m one of the more outspoken members of clergy who happen to be gay and I write quite a lot about that on the blog. For me, equality is indivisible – I think that people should be treated alike whether or not they happen to be gay or happen to be straight and that has led me to be one of the campaigners to Equal Marriage in Scotland. I look forward to the day when I’ll be able to marry such couples in church.
    with angelsAs well as finding me in church, you will find me in other places too. Social media seems to have been invented for me and I’m active on both facebook and twitter.
    When I’m not in church or online, I’m happiest in the theatre. Holidays quite often include a trip to London to catch up with what’s on there. A fascination with opera has led me into opera reviewing and my reviews of what’s happening on the opera stage in Scotland are regularly published by Opera Britannia.
    If you are wondering what a thurible is, well it is the thing that you use to swing incense around with in a church.

    If you want to keep up with the things that I write on this blog, you can subscribe using the box below. If you do, you’ll never miss a post.

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19 responses to “Back to work”

  1. Kimberly Avatar

    I’ve been trying to get the last line of each verse to scan better in the absence of the ‘O’ (which is hidden in the vocative, but well hidden indeed since deus is an irregular vocative…)

    perhaps,

    care deus, cum ba ia — ?

  2. Zebadee Avatar
    Zebadee

    Kimberley,

    The time spent feeding you all those fudge doughnuts was certainly not wasted

  3. Moyra Avatar
    Moyra

    How did we get from Kum by Yah, or even Cum ba ia, to fudge doughnuts?

  4. Kimberly Avatar

    Moyra, you have to realise that fudge doughnuts are Zebadee’s equivalent of Mornington Crescent. With enough ingenuity, a link is always possible.

    (It’s a St Andrews thing…)

  5. Moyra Avatar
    Moyra

    I understand….

  6. Sarah SSM Avatar
    Sarah SSM

    I’m sure that there is something holy about fudge doughnuts. Holey, anyway. Come by here, my Lord, we have fudge doughnuts?

    Unfortunately, I live in a convent not sufficiently hol(e)y to have them. Too bad. Nor do we have cum ba ia around a candle, but perhaps Compline counts? I’ll suggest to our Superior that we do cum ba ia for our Compline hymn Tuesday. I’m sure she’d be thrilled (Kimberly can comment on that, I’m sure, as they are acquainted).

    I’m sure someone could come up with an appropriate analysis of cum ba ia from a hermeneutic related to fudge donuts and liberation theology…

  7. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    personally, I’m not sure that I have ever tasted a fudge doughnut. I’ m sure I have no idea what you are all talking about.

  8. Kimberly Avatar

    No, Kelvin. You have never bought a fudge doughnut. That’s not the same thing.

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