What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Mr Provost’s Finest Reindeer Receipt

    Roughly chop a leek, couple of slices of bacon and as many cloves of garlic as you dare.

    Heat a frying pan to a sizzle and fling the leek, bacon and garlic in, closely followed by the reindeer steaks.

    After five minutes turn the steaks over and scoop the leek/pig/garlic into another pan.

    Heat this as far as you dare and tip in enough cheap gin to make you wonder whether this is a waste of good gin.

    Throw in a handful of blueberries

    Heat until kitchen is covered in fog reminiscent of the incense at midnight mass.

    Remove from heat and gently stir in several good dollops of crème fraîche.

    Rudolph steaks will now be ready having cooked for a further five minutes. Artfully plate them up and cover with the sauce that will now be advent coloured.

    Serve with oven roasted potato, butternut squash, red pepper, courgette ensemble.

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

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