What is in Kelvin's Head?

On turning down Big Brother

19/08/2014

This morning could have been so very different. I could have been waking in a room of sleeping pseudo-clebs and instead of writing a blog post I could have been called to the diary room.

The funniest telephone call I’ve taken in the last year was from an agent looking for candidates for the Big Brother House who was ringing to ask whether I would be interested in auditioning for Celebrity Big Brother. I didn’t stop laughing for days. It didn’t need a moment’s thought to know that the BB House was not the place for me.

I have to say that my first thought was that I wasn’t a celebrity but then looking down the list of those who have actually made it into the house, I’m not sure that should have been a worry.

I was never entirely sure why I got that call. The only thing I can think of is that they were going down the Pink List that the Independent kindly publish every year and asking everyone on it whether they might be interested. (The fact that they got to me would indicate that rather a lot of people turned them down before I got the chance to say no). Maybe this blog was a plus point in their minds too.

But how our lives have changed over the years that Big Brother has been in existence on our television screens. The blurring of the public and the private is one of the major themes of modern Western life and one that I think we still don’t quite understand. And the profusion of cameras in our lives is something that I didn’t see coming. I have a little one on top of my computer screen waiting for any moment when I want to make a video call or for when online evening prayer starts up again. As I walk to work, I’ve no idea how many cameras will record my movements nor who will look at the images.

And the idea of confessional diaries that all the world can read – well, blogging has become unremarkable now.

My hunch is that many of the people who started blogs have fallen by the wayside. Perhaps they’ve got bored, perhaps they have been bitten on the behind as things they have written have come back to haunt them and perhaps they just didn’t get the celebrity that they were hoping for. How painful to be a celebrity in your heart that no-one pays any attention to at all.

There’s still mileage in blogging but it is changing. We are seeing fewer bloggers stick it out but I think many of those who are keeping going for the long-term are learning how to do it successfully. The increasing ubiquity of social media means that it is hard to be a successful blogger without knowing one’s way around some of those platforms too.

But people still read blogs. The thousands of people who read my post last week about the offense caused to many by the Director of Communications of the Church of England in one little tweet, were clearly interested in a perspective that they wouldn’t find in the mainstream media.

Very happy to have turned down Big Brother. Very happy to still be on here.

arun arora, Celebrity Big Brother

8 responses to “Finding a place to be”

Gordon

11/10/2024

I do think it’s important to remember that the sectarian persecutions of the past happened within a context that regarded itself as Christian – whether Episcopalian north of the border, or Reformed south of the border, the majority culture just saw itself as the ‘correct’ church.

Our context is of overwhelming apathy towards religion at the best, and at worst, assuming that anyone religious is a fundamentalist with a scantily concealed desire to kill infidels.

But I agree that we would be wise to trust in the Holy Spirit.

Reply
Alastair O

12/10/2024

Kelvin
I always value reading your thoughts. May I suggest you give consideration when you use the word ‘church’? While the Church of Scotlad is closing many buildings, (s)he is not closing churches!

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1. Kelvin
  
  13/10/2024
  
  I’m aware of a C of S congregation which merged with a congregation that was a union of (I think) 7 congregations a number of years ago. This union of 8 has now announced its building will close and it will unite with another one making a union of 9. There is a plan to merge this with another congregation and there are discussions ongoing about which building should be kept.
  
  You can say that all those churches are still open if you like but I’m not sure that people local to this actually do see it that way.
  
  Reply
  1. Ferdinand von Prondzynski
    
    15/10/2024
    
    Indeed. See my separate comment.
    
    Reply
  2. Alastair O
    
    26/10/2024
    
    Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh is a united congregation which over the years has worshipped in 17 places. Worth a visit to see the 17 leg communion table crafted by its social enterprise arm Grassmarket Community Project.
    
    Reply
Rory Gillis

13/10/2024

Hi from Nova Scotia. You mention the Canadian Church in passing. Church demographers told us recently that the last Canadian Anglican will disappear by 2040 and the update is, maybe sooner as a result of the pandemic. My take is that parties, whether ‘liberal’ ( mine) or conservative ( some one else’s) are more consequence than cause. Our current decline is tied in with the decline of religion in Canada in general. Ethnicity is also an issue. Anglicans here are as ethnic as any one else. Our ethnic cohort stopped having large families over two generations ago. Urbanization, rural decline and with it regional outmigration in historically Anglican strong areas like Atlantic Canada are part of the picture.

I think one can distinguish between the decline of the grand old institution
( Anglican Church of Canada, previously The Church of England in Canada) and the future of a communities of faith with an Anglican heritage. Pace demographics, there are just too many stories of parishes and other entities being fully alive, full of The Spirit, doing creative things, holding a place in the community.

Kevin, as your article notes, anecdotes and stories matter. They not only provide hopeful pause for reflection: they also testify to the creative perseverance of a Spirit filled people.

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1. Rory Gillis
  
  17/10/2024
  
  Fr. Kelvin, last para, my apololgy for the typo in your name.It was either auto correct or a inattentive scribal error on my part. I know several ‘Kevins’ indeed too many perhaps. lol. please fix if possible. R.G.
  
  Reply
Elaine

18/10/2024

I think people are done with man made religion but spirituality well that’s a different thing. I feel that you are correct people are drawn to love, inclusivity and holy spaces I think our church is such a space and I know it is growing. I remember Mission 21, it appalled me. Statistics and money. Surely we are beyond that. I have faith, what will be will be. But it might be different to what we think we should have or it should be. Exciting times.

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