What is in Kelvin's Head?

The Triduum Promise

02/04/2015
Over the next couple of days, I will be entering into a different time zone.

It is one thing to put the clock forward to British Summer Time but it is quite another to step into the triduum zone.

The Triduum is the set of services that begin with the Maundy Thursday communion service tonight and which culminate (if Jesus rises) with a great feast on Sunday morning.

When I say that it is like stepping into a timezone, people might presume that it is like stepping back 2000 years but in fact it feels different to that. It is more as though the events surrounding the crucifixion step into our time than that we are looking backwards.

Every year I make the same promise – if you come and keep the Triduum here in St Mary’s it will change your life and change the way you think about Christianity forever. I’ve never had anyone say that my promise wasn’t kept.

What I’m talking about is coming to all of the following:
- The Maundy Thursday service followed by as much of the Watch as possible. (The Watch will be kept until Midnight and some people go away after the communion and return for some of the Watch later in the evening).
- The Good Friday Three Hour devotions and at least one of the other services (either Veneration of the Cross at 9.30 am or Stations of the Cross at 7.30 pm)
- The clean and polish on Holy Saturday – (Yes, this really is part of the triduum experience).
- The Fire Vigil at 7 am on Easter Day.
- High Mass on Easter Day.
It seems like a lot. It is a lot.

But it is a big promise and I’ve found that there’s always one or two who try it out every year. They tend to come back and repeat the experience and yes, they describe it as life changing.

There’s at least one description of what it is like from someone who tested the promise out online, but there’s plenty more accounts circulating in the congregation.

[The previous links in the post above all point to previous descriptions I’ve written on this blog about those services – a couple of years out of date, 2000 years up to date – I don’t know)/

6 responses to “Hillhead By Election”

Zebadee

19/11/2011

It would seem that the Lib Dems are a ‘busted flush’ with no plan to make any meaningful comeback which is very sad. The SNP were in a similar position in the 1980s but did have a plan which has been successful. Is there not a case for the revival of The Liberal Party? There is certainly a need for such a political party for the whole of the UK not just Hillhead. The Liberal Party could possibly unite the whole of the UK and not just Scotland.

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1. kelvin
  
  19/11/2011
  
  Well, the Liberal Party has never gone away – it still exists and has some councillors. No doubt they feel that their time might still come.
  
  I’ve a feeling that there probably needs to be a clear attempt to do something new though. A New Liberal Party could be formed by a significant breakaway of disaffected liberal democrats but would probably need some significant hitters in order to get going. Given that part of the problem is some very unimpressive leadership in the parliamentary party, it makes it hard to see that happening.
  
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Zebadee

19/11/2011

Yes I know that the Liberal party still exists and understand that they have little or nothing to do with the Lib Dems. They too have no big names or ‘big hitters’ which is a pity. As you yourself will know out there in the real world there is a need for a centre party not right or left. I suspect that there is a large number of thinking people who would at least listen to a political message from the ‘centre’ and they are worried and concerned at the polarisation of the right and the perceived ineptitude of the left in todays political parties.

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Caron

20/11/2011

Kelvin, a few weeks ago, we had a by-election win in Inverness. The evidence suggests that the Liberal Democrats have not become toxic, but where we work, knocking on lots of doors, having strong campaign messages and get our vote out, we get good results.

We had a first class candidate in Hillhead, but I agree that we need to look at how we get our message across.

I’m not for the Murdo method of abolishing the party just to set up a new one. We have good, liberal ideas, with good, liberal values, and an energetic leader who is so genuine, so likeable and very good at explaining what they are. Yes, we have a mountain to climb, but we have our ropes and crampons ready and we’re already ahead of where we were a few months ago.

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1. kelvin
  
  20/11/2011
  
  Yes, I know Caron – I agree with a lot of what you have said. However, the big question is whether the party can get people out there working again.
  
  The win in Inverness was good though it was a pretty narrow thing. Still a win is a win in anyone’s book.
  
  However, whether the party can get doors knocked on etc now is the big question. I know I’m not the only person who has offered a lot to the party in the past who is questioning where the liberal tradition lies.
  
  I know Willie Rennie is likeable and I do believe he stands for lots of good policy ideas that I believe in, but he’s not even making a good job of running his own office at the moment. And his team are not responding online to criticism of him very well either.
  
  I’d love to feel I wanted to support the party – I believe in liberal values, understand liberal values and can articulate liberal values along with the best of them. However, so much of what good people worked for has been squandered so quickly that I just find it too difficult. (By the way, I say that as one of the 307, so I’m still hanging in there in the polling booth).
  
  And the problem is not primarily that the electorate feels betrayed by the Lib Dem brand. That is serious but summountable. The problem is that the activists feel betrayed. That is much, much more serious.
  
  307 votes out of 23243 on leafy home ground and placed fifth is terrible whatever way one looks at it.
  
  The Greens were trumpeting their result on twitter so much I thought they must have won, but they only had 120 or so more votes which doesn’t strike me as a particularly exciting ship to jump to, even if one were looking to leap. I’m not really interested in a party which thinks that getting 435 votes out of an electorate of 23243 is anything to crow about.
  
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James

20/11/2011

Hi Kelvin, I agree about the democratic disengagement – properly alarming. But the Lib Dems as they currently exist aren’t a Liberal party of the sort I think you want. They’re fundamentalist economic liberals, Orange Bookers determined to remove the social safety net. It’s not liberal as I understand it to make education the province of the rich, to cut benefits for the disabled to appease the Jeremy Clarksons of this world, to hike up regressive taxes like VAT, etcetc.

The really small-l liberal party in Hillhead did a lot better than the Lib Dems. The Greens.

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