What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Francistide at St Mary’s

    Today is St Francis’s Day – love and blessings to all Franciscans out there and a special thanksgiving for the ministry of the new Pope.

    Last year I was in St Francis’s own city – not Assisi, but San Francisco and was blessing animals on the labyrinth of Grace Cathedral with Gene Robinson. (No, really, there’s a lovely macaw out there somewhere who can tell you it is all true).

    The focus at St Mary’s this year for Francistide is tomorrow (Saturday).

    We’ve an animal blessing service at 11 am tomorrow. All pets and their humans are welcome.

    Then in the afternoon, we’ve got a Choir Concert – free entry, donations at the end. This will include a performance of Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo starring the Young Church as the animals.

    They’ve been working on this, I gather:

    noah

One response to “Eid, Pride and Abraham’s Sacrifice”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.

    One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
    It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
    But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).

    In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.

    Oofft.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Stewardship Resources

    Last week I wrote to everyone in the congregation at St Mary’s asking them to review their giving to the church. It is something that all congregations in the Scottish Episcopal Church have been asked to think about this year. Initial results are looking promising, though there are a lot of responses still to come…

  • Video Conferencing

    Any readers of this blog got anything to say about [cheap] video-conferencing? The Information and Communication Board of the One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church (Scotland branch) was discussing this at our last meeting. I’ve done msn based meetings before now, but wonder whether anyone knows how to do meetings for about a dozen people…

  • The Justice of Small Things

    To the City Chambers yesterday afternoon to stand alongside Professor Manuel Hassassian, the Palestinian ambassador, as he made a visit to the city. The Lord Provost received him and a small party in her rooms and gave us tea and biscuits and her attention. The Lord Provost is a class act, and I’ve enjoyed meeting…