What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • The Organ & The Consultation

    broken organ

    This picture appeared on my facebook feed yesterday. It was posted by Peter Wakeford who was playing the organ yesterday morning. It shows what was going on during the service.

    Now, if you had been there yesterday you would have heard some sumptuous music and would have had no idea that anything was going wrong. However, the last thing an organist wants is for the pistons to fly out when you give them a nudge.

    This picture shows something fairly small going wrong with the organ but it is indicative of the state that parts of it are in. Much of the pipework – the bits that make the noise is fine. Indeed, much of the pipework is of significant historical interest. However, the bits that make the pipes play, not so much. There are huge problems with the console and with the transmission – that’s the gubbins that tells which pipe to open after the organist has pulled out a stop and attempted to play a note.

    Thinking about the organ is just one bit of what the Vestry are currently consulting the congregation about. A new consultation paper called Releasing the Mission was launched last week at the Annual General Meeting. It is partly about the organ but is also about how we build capacity into St Mary’s so that we can do what we do well and even do more. We are so busy at the moment that the building is creaking at the seams. If we did a bit of development work, we would be able to help to secure the musical life of the place (which is a core part of our mission work), provide more space for the groups and networks that are buzzing, get better use of the building for the local community and also provide a more welcoming space when the diocese is holding big events at St Mary’s.

    The consultation paper is available online on the website and the Vestry are hoping that lots of people will respond – whether people who are directly members of the congregation or indeed those who have a more tangential relationship with St Mary’s. The hope is that lots of different voices and constituencies can be heard. Responses can be made using the on-line form or in writing via the Cathedral office.

32 responses to “Sign seen”

  1. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    What was the character of the debate? If one believes that the admission of women to the threefold ministry of the Church was an extension of an existing doctrine, not a doctrinal change, and that the dropping of the ‘filioque’ clause from the Creed wasn’t a doctrinal change either (nobody is compelled to deny that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son), the change to the doctrine of initiation was the most important doctrinal change made by the Scottish Episcopal Church not just in my lifetime but perhaps even in the SEC’s history. It amazes me that it seems to have been so uncontroversial.

    Reply
  2. Robin Avatar
    Robin

    (I don’t say I necessarily disapprove of the change. I’m quite happy not only for the unconfirmed but also for the unbaptised to be admitted to Holy Communion and would turn away no-one – except perhaps ++Judas Williams, and even then probably not – from the altar. But I can’t understand how a Church can teach two contradictory things at once.)

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      To a certain extent, saying two contradictory things at once is part of the consequence of having old liturgical formularies alongside modern ones, I think.

      (If you are not going to say something new, what’s the point in producing something new after all).

      The modern descriptions of marriage in the 2007 marriage rite don’t seem to me to be entirely consistent with the marriage rite of 1929, for example.

      It is the way we live now.

      Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Well, as I said, there were several of us who spoke against the change, for one reason or another but it was passed by a fairly high majority, I think.

    It seems to me that there is just about every view about initiation into the Christian church that has ever been held is currently also held and practised in the Scottish Episcopal Church. Indeed, there are varieties of practice and procedure within congregations and even within families.

    Reply

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