What is in Kelvin's Head?

Quiet Wednesday – one week to go

03/12/2014

Guest blog post from the Vice Provost, the Rev Cedric Blakey

Quiet Wednesday is the idea at St Mary’s Cathedral, an antidote to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. A day with no work, no shopping, no card writing or food prep. A day, well up to 6 hours, without emails, blogging or social media. A day in company with a dozen or so others at a small monastery in the heart of Glasgow.

The idea? To give yourself a little space before things get too frantic. In fact to turn up and be looked after. To hear a couple of short talks on the subject “Great Expectations: a look at waiting and longing”, and most importantly, to find a space to read, to think, to pray or simply be.

Last year, one person wrote “it was just what I needed, a day when I felt I had permission to stop and to rest and be ministered to with quality words and in a beautiful, peaceful place. To have this day a couple of weeks before Christmas made all the difference. It was simply divine”.

People can still join the day on Wednesday 10 December starting at 10.00 using the form on the cathedral website. And those at a distance can join in too. Perhaps by planning a day at home or in a park or glen.

11 responses to “Predictions for 2014”

Rosemary Hannah

01/01/2014

I am struggling with nine – I mean, Lord Carey, being unhelpful, oh no, beyond imagination …. 😉

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Kate

01/01/2014

In what way is 9. a ‘prediction’. Next it’ll be ‘mystic sage thurible predicts continued arising of the sun’. Also tricky to imagine that there’s much more dirty washing in O’Brien’s washing basket unless he also has a wife and three children. 6, interesting. 7, I am merely a passing English person who has to read Scottish government press releases for work, but on this basis I can’t for the life of me think why you wouldn’t want to separate yourselves from England – just about everything is better – whether it’s some interest and care for soil fertility and the land, an enlightened approach to the arts or a First Minister actually prepared to turn up at a Food Bank. If it wasn’t a bit chilly up there, Id be taking Gaelic lessons now.

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Kelvin

01/01/2014

9 – might just have had a touch of sarcasm about it.
4 – there *is* more dirty linen to be washed
6 – surprised other people haven’t seen how clever Pilling was
7 – I don’t think so. We neither speak Gaelic here nor want separation. It might be suggested that reading SNP press releases might not actually be the most balanced way to grasp what is happening in Scotland. #bettertogether

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1. Kate
  
  01/01/2014
  
  4 – crumbs, and probably ‘oh dear’
  6 – When the Faith and Order commission’s last gutless report on marriage came out, we still weren’t short of people (Giles Fraser among others) who thought there was all a secret coded message in their somewhere that was altogether more positive. Pilling seems to me like another not-very-brave dog’s breakfast where you can see pretty much anything you like, if you squint. That doesn’t mean to say that nothing positive will come of it, in the sense that whatever he’d written, the C of E is going to be overtaken by events – and the sheer statistics of the whole of their youth turning against them. And the Evangelicals are quietly fracturing down exactly the same generational fault line too. But I’m not seeing the artful contrivance in Pilling that you clearly are….
  7. Here, my tongue was a bit in my cheek too. But I do read UK government press releases too, and honestly, if I was immigrating, I’d totally head for Scotland.
  
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  1. Kelvin Holdsworth
    
    01/01/2014
    
    7 – I think that Scotland is the best part of the UK to be in.
    
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  2. Beth Routledge
    
    01/01/2014
    
    7. I too think that Scotland is the best part of the UK to be in, and I am pleased that various things are devolved. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
    
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robert

01/01/2014

It seems (to me!) that Carey is now filling the same place that David Jenkins took when Carey was ABC and is sought out by journalists at Christmas/Easter wanting something to write about.

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1. Kelvin
  
  01/01/2014
  
  Well, if they just ring me, I’ll be happen to take the burden out of his hands…
  
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Zebadee

01/01/2014

[7] Yes Yes Yes– in my all too humble opinion Scotland is the best part of the UK live in. This opinion has not changed over many many years.

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Chris

02/01/2014

7. I want to throw the baby out, but having once sung in a Gaelic choir (phonetic renderings of words) have no desire – nay, no need, even in Argyll – to learn Gaelic. Just saying.

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Craig Nelson

11/01/2014

I agree Pilling is not meant for us but it is a mechanism that allows for the smallest change possible. If that change doesn’t happen, none will, if it does then eventually the change will perforce continue. It’s a kind of fulcrum around which change will/can happen.

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