What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Our own little Anglican Communion

    We had a great day yesterday at St Mary’s with the Very Rev Peter Elliott visiting from Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver. The way that the rotas resolved themselves meant that we had a preacher from the Anglican Church of Canada, a celebrant (me) from the Scottish Episcopal Church, a deacon, Chucks from the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) and the Scottish Episcopal Church and a subdeacon (Akma) from the US based Episcopal Church. Fluttering delicately around all of that were servers who bring skills and experience from the Church in Wales via the Church of the Province of Southern Africa, the Methodist Church in the USA and the Roman Catholic Church in England. And that isn’t to start on where the congregation came from.

    We are at St Mary’s sometimes our own little Anglican Communion and it is lovely.

    Peter Elliott and his congregation in Vancouver showed me great kindness when I was travelling in North America on my sabbatical last year and it was a delight to have him here in Glasgow.

    Peter and his husband Thomas were travelling to Iona in the company of other North American clergy who are heading off for a time of refreshment and renewal with one another and a few of them were around in St Mary’s on Sunday too.

    The world of deans and rectors of larger churches is quite different in North America to the world of Provosts here in Scotland. Generally speaking, their world has far greater financial resources to draw on and it can be quite seductive. Not a few people have asked me since I returned, “ooh, aren’t you tempted?”

    However, it is not simply a case of the grass being greener. Having travelled over there I know that quite well. Those who have roles equivalent to mine in ecclesiastical terms do some things the same and other things quite differently. Many, for example, on the other side of the Atlantic need to spend their time on fund raising in a way that would be unimaginable here. (Scheduling several fund-raising visits or lunches a week is not that unusual). I’ve learned that those jobs are very different to my own. Here in Scotland we tend to do things much more on the cheap. It is a very different fund-raising culture. That isn’t to say there are not important lessons to be learned from those on the other side of the pond on this topic, but things are very different.

    Here in the UK though we have differently developed key skills. Not least, clergy here in larger places need to be very skilled at building a community where people want to serve and want to offer something. Helping people to offer their gifts is a core skill and not always one which we think about enough. If we have any expertise, it is in gathering a congregation that is so focussed on a vision of life-enhancing and world-renewing worship that they want to join in and collaborate in bringing that vision of the kingdom in.

    It has its own excitement and yesterday at St Mary’s was one of those days where that excitement was tangible.

    , , , ,

5 responses to “Mr Provost’s Finest Reindeer Receipt”

  1. Bro David Avatar
    Bro David

    You know that English is not my first language, but I thought that when you buy something that the shop usually gives you a receipt and that the instructions regarding how to cook or bake something was a recipe.

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      You are right, Bro David in that nowadays when you buy something you get a receipt and when you cook you follow a recipe.

      However, they come from the same word and it used to be that receipt was used for a list of cooking ingredients. See for example, Ladie Elynor Fettiplace’s Receipt Books, which I think Amazon still have in stock.

      So, my use above is an archaic form of English.

      Reply
  2. Susan Sheppard Hedges Avatar
    Susan Sheppard Hedges

    Do you actually cook and eat reindeer? I would think with all the flying they do, the meat would be stringy and tough! 🙂 Seriously, though, can you buy deer at the butcher’s or do you have a friend who hunts?

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Yes, reindeer steaks for Christmas meal. Very seasonal. Delicious too.

      Any hunters around here would have to go quite a long way to bag a reindeer on the hills. (Finland?)

      These came from my local supermarket, Lidl who, being a German company often have things that others couldn’t or wouldn’t sell. (Snow chains this week!)

      Reply
      1. Susan Sheppard Hedges Avatar
        Susan Sheppard Hedges

        We have reindeer in the Northern climbs of our continent, Canada and Alaska. They are mostly called Caribou here. People do hunt regular sorts of deer in the US. My mother in her later years, had a neighbor that would bring her a prepared haunch sometimes. She said it was ‘gamey, but not bad’ which one could only expect of wild animals. I love the fact that your supermarket sells snow chains. It’s always nice to have a supplier for the emergencies.

        Reply

Leave a Reply

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

Previous Posts

  • Alexander Pope

    Here is a bit of Alexander Pope’s poem Messiah which I came across for the first time yesterday whilst thinking about the carol service and midnight mass. (You have to plan ahead, you know). Peace o’er the world her olive wand extend, And white robed innocence from heaven descend. Swift fly the years, and rise…

  • On the way home

    Guess where I went on the way home from Edinburgh, coming round the by-pass… I came back with: 14 lightbulbs (all energy efficient) of different shapes and sizes 1 suede cushion to match a chair I already have 1 packet of large round crispbreads (because they remind me of when I lived in Sweden) 1…

  • Sliding Doors

    Enjoyed watching the film Sliding Doors tonight. Gwyneth Paltow was certainly more believable as a London based PR woman than might have been expected. It strikes me that the film is a post-modern take on the whole Jekyll and Hyde thing, except that instead of seeing a character change (or a double character develop as…

  • Stations of the Cross

    I received an interesting press release this morning about some new Stations of the Cross which Gwyneth Leech has painted.  (Gwyneth is the US based artist who did the murals in the Episcopal Cathedral in Glasgow).Here is the first o­ne in the set – Christ is condemned to die – in Guantanamo.(More here: http://ca.prweb.com/releases/2005/4/prweb234099.htm)