What is in Kelvin's Head?

RIP Jim Cotter

17/04/2014

In the middle of the busy days of Holy Week comes the news that Jim Cotter has died.

Jim was a poet-priest – someone for whom words were as important as breathing. He wrote prayers in which unicorns danced.

He was also I think the first out gay priest I ever met, coming to preach in St Andrews about 25 years ago. I met him too in his house in Sheffield. I know also that he spoke here in St Mary’s many years ago and must have been part of the story that has led us to be the congregation that we are.

Jim was talking about gay clergy being out and living in the open years before anyone else did. Indeed, some of the things I talk about which people still think are rather radical, Jim was talking about a generation or more before. He was a visionary and a prophet and suffered a lot in life because of it.

Many, many people will have copies of his night prayers sitting beside the bed. I used them last night and thought about how many people have so much to be grateful for because of Jim Cotter.

God be in my gut and in my feeling
God be in my bowels and in my forgiving
God be in my loins and in my swiving
God be in my lungs and in my breathing
God be in my heart and in my loving

God be in my skin and in my touching
God be in my flesh and in my yearning
God be in my blood and in my living
God be in my bones and in my dying
God be at my end and at my reviving

May he rest in peace now at last.

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7 responses to “Well-meaning but homophobic”

June Butler

26/08/2014

Seems to me “well-meaning but homophobic” in these days and times implies vincible ignorance and is no longer useful as an excuse for homophobic language. The leaders of the C of E seem paralyzed, unable to articulate policies to move forward on equality for LGTB persons that are other than laughable. Think “deer in the headlights”.

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Lawrence Rosenfeld

26/08/2014

I suppose @RevArun might say that women are welcome for the same reason, eh?

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1. margaret of the sea of galilee
  
  27/08/2014
  
  Exactly what I thought.
  
  Reply
Kelvin

26/08/2014

I’ve removed a previous comment. I’d prefer to retain the focus on the institutional elements of this rather than speculating about an individual.

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Dharma Nicodemus Cuthbert

26/08/2014

As society changes many people are not sure of the new, and therefore condemn it, without thought. I am safe, with the Devil l know. It’s a way of life, not dealing with changes. If we think about how much has changed; homosexuality was illegal until 1969 in England; Scotland caught up in 1983; women have a right to equal pay; the only job that is still excluded from them is working down a mine:
There are men who are prepared to wait to see a male doctor, especially if it is the genitals.
Racism is not tolerated by most, but it is still used by people who want a reaction. There was, when the world and I were young, a shoe polish, called nigger brown. This wasn’t considered at the time as being wrong.

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John O’Leary

27/08/2014

I take your point, and I don’t disagree. If we look at another person and only see the gay part as ‘broken’, then that’s homophobic, no matter how well intentioned. Plus I always find something disturbingly patronising when people say ‘We’re all broken’, as if the speaker doesn’t quite believe it of him/herself, while seeing it very clearly in the other.

However, there’s another way of looking at it. The very fact that we are human means that we are broken. If being gay is part of that humanity, then it’s part also of that brokenness. It’s all part of the messy mixture that we struggle with, and build our rickety lives with, but for which we also should praise and thank God.

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Allan Ronald

27/08/2014

‘Thinking Anglicans’ has a post up about Vicky Beeching’s coming out but does not link to the discussion here. I asked why but they did not reply let alone publish my question.

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