What is in Kelvin's Head?

Willkommen! Bienvenue! Welcome!

19/12/2013

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).

Hi, 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.

I 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.

The 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.

As 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.

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its all about me, Kelvin Holdsworth, welcome

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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