What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Silence is Golden

    Forum on Silence from St Mary's Cathedral, Glasgow on Vimeo.

    Somehow I managed to forget to publish this video on the blog but it is worth taking a look. It came from a forum conversation that I had with the Vice Provost, Cedric Blakey the other week.

    The point of this was to have a public chat about the way Cedric prays. One of the odd things about church is that individuals very rarely talk about their own personal spirituality and I was grateful to Cedric for being so open to having this discussion.

    We talk about this and also about:

    • whether God dictates answers to us
    • how breathing is integral to prayer
    • how to teach someone to pray
    • if you fall asleep whilst doing breathing exercises is that a sign of it working?
    • do single people need to spend time in silence?
    • how silence is golden.

    The video is a fairly short forum conversation – just 20 minutes.

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4 responses to “Politics of Pilgrimage”

  1. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Living in Ireland – at one time not too far from Knock – it always astonished me when driving through the village how those who had just visited the shrine seemed to think that it had made them invincible! They’d wander into the middle of the road and totally ignore the traffic streaming around them!

    A bottle of Knock holy water in the shape of Our Lady sits behind me as I type – next to a similar one from Lourdes and a knitted Orangeman bedecked with a collarette proclaiming him a member of LOL 1, Portadown! The juxtaposition is deliberate! (I wonder if + David has one on his shelves from the "support Drumcree" shop?!)

    Which leads to the question "How do holy water taps work?" – theologically, that is! What is blessed to make it holy? Is it the reservoir (but that is constantly replenished and so eventually, after being diluted for a long time, the water becomes "unholy". Is it the tap itself and the water is sanctified by passing through it?

    Discuss!

    Reply
  2. Avatar
    Anonymous

    Holy Water Taps
    Perhaps the water becomes holy when it is applied by the believer to the cat.

    Reply
  3. Joan Avatar
    Joan

    Holy water and questions about pilgrimage

    Hmmm, yes I can see the dilemma…I guess the female ordaindees (not a word really, apologies for my attack on the English language) are excluded – though would it be possible to construct a small al fresco altar and hold a ceremony of your own?  Pilgrimage places become so because people believe something, not just the ecclesiastical hierarchy, I think?  If we don’t go then it is like saying ‘ok, you have that site of devotion then’.  (Yikes I sound so serious, which I am, but I really do mean my statements to come out as questions…not commands.)

    As to the cat, holy water, and the believer – maybe  all the water is holy and we just think we play a role in making it so?  Alternatively, maybe the cat is the believer and the water is transformed through a great mysterious purr.

    Reply
  4. Avatar
    Anonymous

    The Cat in Question
    As for the cat in question, she is not a believer as such. Rather, she thinks that she is the only proper object of veneration.

    Reply

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