What is in Kelvin's Head?

For the cartoonists

07/01/2015

I used a cartoon, and a religious cartoon at that, on, my blog yesterday and yet I live.

I sometimes pray for satirists – those who come to occasional services in St Mary’s may occasionally have heard me do so. They don’t usually get enough prayers. Today, sadly, the thoughts of the world are with them.

The killing of the journalists and cartoonists in Paris today made me think of a divinity class I was in long ago. We were talking about feminism and ethics, that being the stuff I was made on. We had discussed non-violence and non-violent protest. Inevitably we had made an excursion around Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr and had probably had a go at whether Bonhoeffer was justified in getting involved in the plot against Hitler. We noted that these were all men, of course, and and talked about whether that was inevitably so.

Eventually, someone said, “Yes, but what about real tyrants. What do we have to say to people facing real tyranny. Do we tell them to go floppy in the middle of the road as part of a protest when they will just get killed for it? What about tyrants – how do we deal with them?”

There were no answers forthcoming from the class but there was from the person teaching it.

“Make people laugh at them” she said.

I’ve never forgotten that answer and I don’t forget it today, for all its problems.

I realised then that words and ideas were always more potent, always more powerful than force. It was a moment when something significant made sense to me for the first time. Humour can be savage and sometimes needs to be.

The killings in Paris do no honour to any god. They dishonour our common humanity.

And so I turn back to my prayers.

For satirists, humourists, cartoonists.
For journalists. For bystanders.
For those who take risks to disturb our peace of mind.
For those who take risks to give the peace and security for them to do so.

Lord in your mercy.
Hear our prayer.

cartoonists, Charlie Hebdo, killings, Paris

6 responses to “Here or there?”

Gary

01/04/2007

Up there. High altar. No doubt.

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Tom Allen

01/04/2007

I am very much with Richard Giles on this one – there should liturgically only be one main altar – ideally this is achieved by romoving the former High altar and dedicating that space to some other purpose – where that is not possible as in historic cathedrals then it should be left dormant (covered in a simple cloth perhaps) and only the altar which is being used for worship should be dressed since this is in fact THE altar.

Despite all the reservations about removing former altars in the end it solves long-term problems, and provides a single visual focus for Eucharistic worship. At times when a high altar is needed then the new altar can moved there.

This kind of fuzziness illustrates that our liturgical practice has become dominated by hertiage criteria.

I am about to replace our main altar with something moveable and aesthetically more appropriate, but am facing a Registrars ruling that the current altar (and former eastward facing number more recently provided with wheels and moved to the chancel!) must be burnt, and that the wood frontal cannot be used for a screen.

Dont’ we get ourselves tied up in knots!
Tom

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Stewart

01/04/2007

A thought came to my mind this afternoon. At the Creed we all face east. This results in the choir turning their back on the Nave Altar and in most cases put the High Altar in their sight.

Considering Tom’s comments, another thought thinking about some English Cathedrals which have multiple altars around the building, it is not usually possible to see more than one at a time. Some have a chapel behind the High Altar – behind a screen.

Turning back to St Mary’s – all the action at the 10:30 service is centred and focused around the Nave Altar. However there is still the High Altar, the Pheobe Traquair Reredos and Gwyneth Leach mural of Our Lady at the East End. To my mind their presence enhances the worship around the Nave Altar and does not detract from it.

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Andrew

02/04/2007

The Altar is a table, where we commemorate a meal together. Clearly (to my mind) we should all be sitting round it, as we do (more or less) at present. The table reminds me that Jesus instituted the Last Supper when he was among us (HERE), not somewhere else (THERE).

I very much hope that the Altar in St. Mary’s can be left where it is.

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kelvin

03/04/2007

It seems to me curious that the practice that I inherited was to light and dress the high altar whilst using the nave altar. It makes no sense, except perhaps to highlight St Mary’s puzzling parallel worlds of deep conservatism mingled with radical liberalism.

Whist tending to agree with Andrew’s sentiments, it is worth remembering that the nave altar could hardly be said to have stayed in one place these last 20 years.

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Elizabeth

17/04/2007

Here. Both. Loving the paradox.

But maybe I only say that beccause the only church I’ve regularly worshiped in where there are clearly two visible altars is St Mary’s and that’s what I’m used to. I’ve never found it distracting that the high altar is dressed and lit, even though the nave altar is where the action is, so to speak. But then, would I notice if the high altar wasn’t dressed and lit? Probably not.

I do love the nave altar, peripatetic as it is!

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