What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Christmas Message from Bishop Gregor

    It is quite likely that people reading this blog won’t be aware of Bishop Gregor’s Christmas Message – I don’t think it was sent to clergy or congregations and it doesn’t appear on the diocesan website. However, it is quite a good one and so I’m putting it on here.

    gregor_duncanI heard a carol new to me last year at the Cathedral: All this time this song is best: Verbum caro factum est. That is, All this time this song is best: The Word was made flesh. (It only rhymes in Latin.)

    That carol is right, it is indeed the best song we can sing at Christmastide.

    But why? At Christmas I receive the odd circular letter folded into a Christmas card. I enjoy these letters, on the whole. Last year one came from people I used to know from Oxford days, way back in the 1970s. At the top it had a quote from the great Swiss theologian, Karl Barth:

    We may choose to live without God. God has decided from all eternity never to live without us.

    Wow! That leapt out at me.

    You see, St John’s great proclamation that The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the best song we can sing, is the best song because in singing it we sing of God’s desire, of God’s choice, from all eternity, never to live without us. Remember, for St John, the story of Christmas begins with God, in eternity. In the beginning was the Word.

    Now, when you choose to live with someone, and especially when you commit to live with someone for the whole of the rest of your life, this is to do with love, a determined love that, as St Paul says in his first letter to the Corinthians bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. A love that is patient and kind and rejoices in the right.

    This kind of love is often beyond us – though often we can come pretty close to it – but it is never ever beyond God. This is how God loves us and if we can love a little bit like that well, then, we are showing something of God’s love in the world.

    The other thing is that when you choose to live with someone faithfully and truly, you are recognising something in the other person that is attractive to you, that gives you delight, that makes you want the relationship to grow and deepen. And that’s another reason why Verbum caro factum est, the Word became flesh is the best song. For it reminds us that God finds us attractive, seeks us out, wants his relationship with us, and ours with him, to grow and deepen until it comes to glorious flower. The song is about God and it is about us and it is all about love.

    I sang another carol new to me at the Cathedral last year:

    Lord, you are love beyond all telling,
    Saviour and King we worship you;
    Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
    Make us and keep us pure and true:
    Lord, you are love beyond all telling,
    Saviour and King, we worship you.

    The Word became flesh and dwelt among us – love beyond all telling – that is the heart of Christmas, the core of our celebration, the ground of all our hope.

    ,

5 responses to “Tanzania”

  1. Raspberry Rabbit Avatar
    Raspberry Rabbit

    A bit picky, yes. Idris will no doubt correct them when he’s there.

    Reply
  2. Simon Sarmiento Avatar
    Simon Sarmiento

    Umm. So Northern Ireland is part of Britain is it?
    Four churches in the UK maybe.

    Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Well Simon, you are correct in your assumption that I was thinking of the Church of Ireland in Northern Ireland, rather than perhaps the Church of Rockall.

    People who are being picky deserve to be picked up for slack talk. However, speaking as I do from the Second City of Empire, I hide behind this quote on the website for Number 10 Downing Street:

    http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page823.asp

    “The United Kingdom is made up of four countries: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Its full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

    Great Britain, however, comprises only England, Scotland and Wales. Great Britain is the largest island of the British Isles. Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic form the second largest island.

    The UK is just under 1,000 km long from the south coast of England to the extreme north of Scotland, and is 500 km across at its widest point. It shares a single land border with the Irish Republic. Despite its relatively small size the UK boasts incredibly varied and often very beautiful scenery.

    The Isle of Man and the Channel Islands are not part of the United Kingdom. They are largely self-governing with their own legislative assemblies and systems of law. But the British Government is responsible for their defence and international relations.

    On this site the term ‘Britain’ is used informally to mean the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”

    I’d also refer interested parties to the Wikipedia page on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Isles_naming_dispute

    I offer this topic as a free gift to Bishop David.

    Reply
  4. Bishop David Avatar
    Bishop David

    As you would expect, I am all knotted up on this one. I am a citizen of Ireland – or the Irish Republic – or the Republic of Ireland. Nor Eire – or, as many of my parishioners in Portadown would have called it [never having moved on from 1922], the ‘Free State’. Meanwhile President Mary MacAleese is often termed President of Ireland which seems to me to be as notable a piece of ‘overlooking’ as when Ian Paisley refers to the ‘people of Ulster’ [which means some of the Protestant/Unionist population of Northern Ireland] and Gerry Adams refers to the ‘Irish People’ [which means not the Protestant/Unionist population of Northern Ireland]. I like Wiki’s rather coy description of Ireland as ‘currently split’ – meaning just the most recent 85 years. Which in the context of thousands of years of British misrule in Ireland is but a blink. And finally one comes to the interesting use of the term ‘mainland’ …

    Reply
  5. steg Avatar
    steg

    Must admit when I saw you were writing about primates in Tanzania I thought your blog was going to be about ape conservation………………….

    In my experience people from outwith the UK confuse Britain and England a lot. And they have a point. Do you always refer to the Netherlands or sometimes to Holland even when you are refering to the non Holland bits of the Netherlands? And how do you think that makes the Friesian’s feel? And so on.

    Reply

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