What is in Kelvin's Head?

What was I reading on holiday?

21/05/2012
Well, I’m just back from two week’s holiday and back to the soulface today.

Have you missed me?

I’ve spent two lovely weeks in the sun, sitting on a terrace in the South of France watching the view and reading.

You want to know what I’ve been reading on holiday? Oh, thank you for asking.

Actually, I’ve read more on this holiday than I have in months – something that I put down to the fact that I had a new tablet with me which allowed me to read electronic books. Didn’t know how I’d cope with that, but turns out to be great.

Here’s the pages I kept turning….
- The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character (Penguin Classics) – Thomas Hardy. (One of my O Level books. Not read for years.
- Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth (Relentless, funny, sad)
- Breakfast at Tiffany’s– Truman Capote (Surprised by the advocacy of same-sex marriage in the 1940s).
- Oryx And Crake – Margaret Atwood (Strange – oh so very strange)
- Things Fall Apart – Chinua Achebe (Great novel about Ibo culture meeting the Western missionaries)
- Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt – Richard Holloway. (Was reading this for review in inspires)
All that and a few scraps of poetry. Enjoyed it all.

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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