• The Past Tense

    Sometimes museums are terribly annoying. I found myself getting all worked up about this thurible.

    image

    Well, It wasn’t exactly the thurible that got me worked up but the card next to it.

    image

    The caption uses the past tense. “Censors were used…”

    Censors are used. It somehow felt so frustrating to look at an object that I could pick up and use in my daily work and which seemed to me to be in as good a state as when it was first made and yet see the caption speaking about the use as being something in the past.

    As I looked around the same gallery, all the references to anything liturgical were expressed in the same way:

    “Music was important in the Christian liturgy…”

    There’s no was about it.

2 responses to “4 March Statement”

  1. Jimmy McPhee Avatar
    Jimmy McPhee

    It is impossible to comment on these matters without appearing patronizing, ignorant or rude probably all three at once.
    I’m not a member of any Christian denomination, but if I was an Episcopalian and 38 Archbishops of my church unanimously signed a communique then I would be loath to disagree with it.

  2. Judy Avatar
    Judy

    I was at a conference in York last summer and participated in a workshop on sexual diversity. I was proud to be able to quote part of this statement to others in the group. I’m not sure if it was this summer I would feel as proud to be a member of the Scottish Episcopal Church.

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