What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Sermon – The Proud Young Man

    I was preaching today for the first time in about six weeks and had a lot of fun doing so. You can hear what I had to say here or read it below.

    There is something terribly tricky about young men who get excited about religion.

    I remember a number of years ago. I was training to be ordained and was doing an internship in a congregation in Edinburgh in Scotland. Like very many Episcopalians, I did not grow up as an Anglican. I’d come from a background in the Salvation Army and been through many different types of congregation on my journey. I’d been baptist and non-denominational. I’d been just about everything as I searched for the truth.

    And finally, I found what I was looking for in the Scottish Episcopal Church. There I found a church which in which beauty mattered, holiness mattered, worship mattered. It was a church which could cope with the radical theology that had excited me at college and it was a church that had the exotica of every liturgical practise of the ages.

    You know how it is.
    (more…)

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5 responses to “Back to School”

  1. william Avatar
    william

    I note your reference to “in straight lines ” when you were at Bearsden PS.
    Were you not taught about tautologies in these former days, when education would have been more content based than you would have found on your recent visit?

    Reply
  2. Kelvin Holdsworth Avatar
    Kelvin Holdsworth

    Er, yes I was and no, it isn’t.

    Reply
  3. PamB Avatar
    PamB

    Ah yes, the staffroom etiquette. I’ve done the cup thing, the chair thing, and, possibly worst faux-pas of all, the crossword thing in my time. Nowadays there are no staff rooms, just bases, a whole new minefield of unwelcoming stares.

    Reply
  4. Jaye Richards-Hill Avatar
    Jaye Richards-Hill

    Sorry to hear about the torrid time in P7 you had with the belting teacher…as a teacher myself, I’m not in favour of such tactics. I find a cold silent stare always used to work better than any cane or belt…such activities should be reserved for consenting adults only ;-/

    Reply
    1. kelvin Avatar
      kelvin

      Thanks Jaye.

      The same teacher spent a quarter of each day on religious instruction and was, as I said, quite mad.

      One one occasion I was belted for humming. On another, simply, I suspect for being me.

      There are probably those reading this who have some sympathy with her.

      Reply

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