What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Predictions 2023 – How did I do?

    1  Generative artificial intelligence will become significantly disruptive of many sectors this year. Education practices will change quickly as a result of this but education will be but one of many areas of life to be affected.

    Happening all around us (even to people who can’t see it happening around them) – prediction fulfilled.

    2 No progress for those seeking marriage equality in the Church of England. There will be a lot of talk about moving towards some form of official blessings for same-sex couples which would have the effect of thwarting those seeking actual equality, making it more difficult to achieve. Further division amongst pro-gay activists in the Church of England.

    Happening exactly as predicted. The recent developments following the LLF project make equality more even further away – prediction fulfilled.

    3  Indyref 2 will not happen on 19 October 2023 as Nicola Sturgeon had hoped, which is a shame for those seeking to separate Scotland from the rest of the UK as the autumn will be the high water mark for the Indepedence movement. It will be downhill into the next General Election after that.

    Happenning but not quite as I expected. Indryref didn’t happen but Indy polls are indeed riding high. However I didn’t see the mess the SNP would get itself into along the way. Prediction Fulfilled.

    4  Trump and Biden will both declare that they intend to run for the US presidency in 2024 and American politics will continue to be all about Donald Trump.

    Exactly as I said – prediction fulfilled.

    5  Covid recovery remains bumpy, particularly through supply-chain problems due to mismanagement of Covid in China.

    Pretty much as I said – we’ve largely forgotten the supply chain issues that continued from the end of last year into the new year and the spring. Prediction mostly fulfilled.

    6 No conclusive end to the war in Ukraine this year.

    Alas. Prediction fulfilled

    7 Governments in Westminster and Holyrood will announce some kind of “new deal” for the National Heath Service.

    Holyrood here: https://www.gov.scot/publications/programme-government-2023-24/pages/5/

    Westminster: Pay – here https://healthmedia.blog.gov.uk/2023/07/14/government-accepts-recommendations-from-nhs-pay-review-bodies/
    Westminster: Medicines here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/landmark-deal-to-boost-nations-health-and-save-nhs-14-billion

    Prediction fulfilled.

    8 – UK Government will not succeed in blocking Scottish Gender Recognition Reform.

    I remain surprised that the Scottish Governnent gave up on this. Prediction not fulfilled.

    9  Liam McArthur’s bill in the Scottish Parliamant to allow doctors to participate in the killing of terminally ill patients will fail to receive parliamentary approval but will receive more support than similar proposals have before.

    Bill hasn’t received approval but hasn’t gone to a vote either. Large levels of support in the media. Prediction partially fulfilled.

    10  Changes announced to the UK honours system, perhaps at the time of the Coronation, to remove references to empire. OBE becomes Order of British Excellence.

    Not happened yet. Prediction not fulfilled.

     

    Result – about 7 1/2 out of 10 this year I think. Not bad.

66 responses to “Sermon Preached on 9 October 2011”

  1. kelvin Avatar
    kelvin

    Now, I think we are in danger of moving away from commenting on the sermon that was posted above.

    Further comments that are focused on that sermon are welcome. I think that I will exercise my perogative and choose not to host any further debates on this thread unless they pertain directly to the orginal post.

    Several comments from those of differing opinions have been gently hushed.

    Reply
  2. Alan McManus Avatar
    Alan McManus

    I remember hearing you preach this sermon, Kelvin, and being surprised at your take on it. Mine, I now realise (thanks for the research, Rosemary), came from Augustine (via my RC school chaplain, now happily married, whose constant theme was the love of God for us). It’s difficult to revise views learned while young as the evidence we accepted as children is not always acceptable to our adult minds – if we chose to review it. So I sympathise both with my coreligionist and with our Cromwellian interlocutor, despite their abrasive tone and the fun we can have with bowels and prostrates: they appear both to speak the truth as they see it. But so does everyone else commenting – and some (like Jaye) read the Hebrew scriptures in the original. I like the interpretation put forward by Kenny and Agatha and just because it was a convenient one for Augustine doesn’t mean it has to lack truth. So I turned to the Greek for backup and the first word that struck me was Ἀρίστων (ariston) which has connotations of excellence and survives in ‘aristocrat’. This king calls his ‘banquet’ (Jerusalem Bible) literally ‘my excellence’ – and he’s obviously gone all out. So none of the big wigs turn up and he goes all inclusive and gets the good and the bad in. Then throws a hissy fit about the dress code. He sounds A LOT like me when I’m directing. Then I noticed there’s a lot of play on IN and OUT (even ‘crossroads’ is διεξόδους – diexodous – way out ways?) and the final words are a pun on κλητοί (kletoi – named/ invited) and ἐκλεκτοί (eklektoi – called/ chosen).
    Now I suspect that shackling a quest hand and foot and shoving him out the door into outer darkness (the Greek word for darkness is the Classical root of ‘Scotland’!) may have put a rather gloomy outlook on the evening’s festivities. Could that be the point? It’s sandwiched between the parable of the wicked husbandmen that has the son of vineyard owner exit sharply and the trap Jesus escapes about taxes.
    With all this about ‘who’s in who’s out?’ and ‘which side of the coin are you on?’ can we take this passage with a pinch of Paul (and Augustine, and Cromwell) and say ‘our righteousness is as filthy rags before the Lord’? So the point is not how we are named/ that we are invited but that the church (ekklesia) we are chosen and called to be is not one of domineering control freaks throwing hissy fits because the excellence of their table arrangements has been spoilt by someone not following rubrics. Or by (ditto) because their nice ideas about biology (JS, once you mention ‘purpose’, no biologist will take you seriously) have been spoilt by people in love. St Mary’s is a great liturgical feast indeed. Everyone goes all out for excellence. Yet I’ve seen the oddest-dressed people doing the oddest things (me late, again, in my glad rags included) welcomed. The RC Church in Scotland, of whose hierarchy I am deeply deeply ashamed, would do well to stop whitewashing sepulchers and start calling the clergy and laity in their charge to inclusive love.

    Reply
    1. Alan McManus Avatar
      Alan McManus

      That should be άριστον, guest, εκλεκτοί. Transliteration is correct, it was the cut and paste that was slapdash. Fortunately my phone does Greek (no pun intended) but it doesn’t do breathings.

      Reply

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