What is in Kelvin's Head?

A Preface for Ash Wednesday

13/02/2021

The following preface was written to mark the beginning of Lent and reflects the language and character of the Lenten material in the Scottish Liturgy 1982 and Daily Prayer of the Scottish Episcopal Church

Dear Friends in Christ, it is the custom of Christian people to prepare to mark the time of Christ’s passion and resurrection by a season of penitence and fasting.

The church calls each of us during these forty days to repent of all that causes harm to ourselves, harm to our earthly dwelling place and harm to our relationship with God.

By carefully keeping these days, Christians take to heart the call to repentance and the assurance of forgiveness proclaimed in the gospel, and so grow in faith and devotion. In turning our hearts towards God, we discover anew the boundless grace of God.

For God will help us to create beauty even within the turmoil of this chaotic world and will help us to gather a harvest of joy and gladness from lives of sorrow and care. Today and every day, God calls the wandering exile home.

We are invited therefore, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance; by prayer, fasting, and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God’s holy word.

14 responses to “Breastfeeding in church?”

Eamonn

06/12/2014

I’m OK with breast-feeding. But is that a tambourine I see in the background?

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1. Kelvin
  
  06/12/2014
  
  Oh, she likes her tambourines and guitars does Herself.
  
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  1. PamB
    
    06/12/2014
    
    It’s a lute. Pronounced lyoot by all the best choirs.
    
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    1. Kelvin
      
      06/12/2014
      
      It is a lutenist angel playing Shine, Jesus Shine.
      
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      1. Bob Chapman
        
        06/12/2014
        
        That might be the only time “Shine, Jesus Shine” would be appropriate to sing.
Christine McIntosh

06/12/2014

I fear the tambourine might disturb the feeding child. Trust me. I know about this.

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Kennedy

06/12/2014

Is the picture of Madonna and Child in the chapel at the Cathedral of the Isles in Millport not showing Mary breastfeeding, not too ostentatiously?

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Bob Chapman

06/12/2014

Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238450

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Gay Corran

07/12/2014

Christine is right: a rattling tambourine would distract a nursing child, particularly one as old as this appears to be! Lute music would be soothing though. Mary’s anatomy is distinctly odd. She seems to have no shoulders, and her breast is in a very peculiar place on her chest. However, we get the point: how could something ordained by God, or “nature” be offensive to anyone? When babies need feeding, they won’t wait; should mothers not go to church or to restaurants for up to two years after a birth? If page 3 type breasts loom from every newsagent’s shelves, what could be so disturbing about breasts being used for their other function?

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1. Christine McIntosh
  
  07/12/2014
  
  Er … I think you’ll find, Gay, that breastfeeding is the primary function of a woman’s breasts; any other is a creation of male fantasies.
  
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  1. Gay Corran
    
    07/12/2014
    
    Interesting point, Christine. Although I said “other” not “secondary”. You know that tee shirt for pregnant women that goes “it began with a kiss”? When most of us got pregnant one of the two functions came into it, I’ll bet, male fantasies or otherwise! Breasts have two functions; what is extraordinary is that one is designated as so disgusting that it has to be performed in private, in a corner, or hidden under a napkin – but it’s the wrong one… Bring on the lutes and adoring angels!
    
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Janet Koch

07/12/2014

Hey, Jesus was breast-fed.

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Eamonn

08/12/2014

‘Is the picture of Madonna and Child in the chapel at the Cathedral of the Isles in Millport not showing Mary breastfeeding?’ Yes, I think it does, Kennedy. It’s also the only Madonna and Child painting I like, as it shows Mary, realistically, as a bedraggled, just-delivered 16-year-old single mother. I wish it were better known.

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Jennifer White

16/10/2017

There is nothing better than these comments and this beautiful meme today. 🙂
-a mom who nursed 2 children for 4 years total

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