What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Quiet Wednesday – one week to go

    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.

19 responses to “8 Things the Churches Could Learn From the collapse of HMV”

  1. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    Fred and Leanne’s comments, way off the mark when it comes to St Mary’s but true to a large extent about other churches, make me realise that a vital element of the new militant atheism/ secularism (not to be confused with multiculturalism as it is totally intolerant of difference) is its online presence. Everyone likes being smug and to be a smug theist you have to spend a considerable amount of time in a good library but to be a smug atheist you need about 3 minutes online watching a video clip of someone untrained in ontology or ethics (but, say, a professor of biology) expound on Being and preach amorality. Bingo! An easy rant to borrow down the pub. It’s the Tractarian approach to evangelisation. Give it to em in byte sized chunks.

    Reply
  2. Fred Garvin Avatar
    Fred Garvin

    “totally intolerant of difference”? You mean the Mainline Protestant churches and semi-Churches (Unitarians and Quakers) of North America, who’ve been preaching “Celebrate Diversity” for over 40 years while still remaining over 95% White and middle/upper middle class? “We hope to represent the future of religion”; odd, you’ve somehow managed to have a median age of 57+. Barely 9% of any Mainline Protestant body is under 31 years old.
    The Tea Party and Republican National Convention are more “diverse” than these groups.
    About as vibrant and colorful as skim milk.
    Again, why bother? You either have the worst programs to “represent our neighborhoods in our churches” or you just don’t mean it.

    Reply
  3. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    I think it is very clear, Fred that Alan is not talking about mainline protestant churches in North America.

    It was very obvious to me that the issues over race and ethnicity there are very far removed from what we experience at St Mary’s and I think in the UK generally.

    That isn’t to say all is perfect but it is to say that things are very different here.

    Reply
  4. Rosemary Hannah Avatar
    Rosemary Hannah

    St Mary’s is very ethnically diverse, and a heck of a lot less than 95% white and does not draw its members from one income-bracket either … nor is our median age in its fifties, I would think. Nor have I ever heard any of us suggest that one has to be religious to be moral. It would of course be wrong to be smug about these things, but then – we are all a little wrong from time to time, aren’t we?

    Reply

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