What's in Kelvin's Head

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Oh, I do admire Google’s ability to fail.

They started something a while ago called Google Wave which they launched as the answer to life the universe and everything. It was going to be collaborative workspace, social communication, the new e-mail that everyone was going to flock to and generally more fun than feather boas.

It hasn’t worked and they’ve stopped development of it this week. Its a lesson in glorious failure. I admire the fact that they had a go and failed so magnificently. No doubt they have learned a lot and got lots of things to build on in the future.

I suspect it failed because the benefit was not worth the sign-up. It was proprietary software (you could only use it from within the Reign of Google) and that’s always tricky. Facebook seems to have managed to make a success of a proprietary model and there are lesser successes like Skype. In some ways its odd that Google hit the mark as the are big enough and butch enough to have a lot of power in the online world.

Google also has a model which is committed to glorious failure. They let their software-bods have significant time to work on dream projects that are not governed by managers. The theory is that the rare successes make it worth living with the failures that are inevitable from some projects along the way.

I’m interested in that for I work in a world which is often a success culture and people fear failure so much that they often won’t innovate.

I was asked this week where I would set up a new Episcopal church in Glasgow if I had a magic wand. I knew my answer immediately. I think there are two obvious targets in this city where a church might be established within five years or so. I’ve been thinking about that for a long time too. Mulling it over and brooding on possibility.

We’ve lost the knack of starting new congregations. A hundred years ago we did it constantly. The failure rate was huge, when you look back at the stories. However, if we could build a little bit of Google innovation into our heads we would realise that failure is inevitable and part of the growth cycle.

Hey, good news, good news. Malcolm Round has started a blog. Malcolm is the Rector of St Mungo’s, Balerno. I know he has been fascinated by the online blogging thing for a while and I’m delighted to see him having a go himself. Away you all go and read his stuff and leave him a……… ooops, you can’t. Malcolm is not allowing comments. Yet.

All of which makes me think about what I’ve learned about blogging since I started. Like any preacher worth her salt, I can sum that up in three words: Conversation, Striptease and Fishing. If I was a certain sort of preacher, there would be alliteration and they would all begin with the same letter. If I was even more of that kind of a preacher, I’d have made then rhyme. Oh well, I’ve peaked your interest enough with one of the words to get you interested enough to keep paying attention anyway. (For Malcolm, that word is fishing, we know what the rest of you are reading on for). Read more »

So, the anti-gay Prop 8 has been ruled unconstitutional in California.

[Here's the catch-up if you've not been paying attention - California allowed some same-sex couples to marry, then there was a people's poll on the same day as the Obama election which was passeed by 52% to 48%. It determined a new amendment to the California constitution which said, "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California". Now, a legal challenge to that has gone through the courts which has found that this in itself was unconstitutional. This has ramifications for those other states which had adopted similar measures and world-wide implications for where California goes today, so many other places will go tomorrow].

Even in the time since Prop 8 was put to the people, the argument has moved on, with Argentina becoming the first South American country to introduce Equal Marriage. (And Mexico offering the first lucky couple a free honeymoon).

Whilst Civil Partnership in this country once appeared quite progressive, it now does not seem to be so. A separate instutution for gay couples seems far from satisfactory. Gradually in one place after another, the argument for Equal Marriage is being made and is being won.

And it moves me too. Even though I’ve long been convinced that people need to be treated equally under the law, when victories are won, it is often the words of the judges or politicians which move me even more than those folk who just want to get wed.

Here’s the key sentence from yesterday’s judgement:

“Plaintiffs do not seek recognition of a new right. To characterize plaintiffs’ objective as ‘the right to same-sex marriage’ would suggest that plaintiffs seek something different from what opposite-sex couples across the state enjoy — namely, marriage. Rather, plaintiffs ask California to recognize their relationships for what they are: marriages.”

That’s the bit of it that made me feel something. It is by statements like that, that gay people are becoming citizens the world over, who have the same rights as anyone else.

Now, I’ve no doubt that this one may yet run and run. I expect that it will be challenged in a higher court. I’m not naive enough to think that its all over yet. However, I do believe that the argument is being won. Little by little, one more step along the world we go and each little victory tastes sweet and wholesome.

Want a taste from the UK?

Here’s part of the judgement from the new UK Supreme Court in the case which blocked the Home Office from deporting gay people to countries in which they faced violence and persecution for being gay. (The government had argued that they should be “discreet”):

“To compel a homosexual person to pretend that his sexuality does not exist or suppress the behaviour by which to manifest itself is to deny his fundamental right to be who he is.
“Homosexuals are as much entitled to freedom of association with others who are of the same sexual orientation as people who are straight.”

Little by little.

Step by step.

Sweetness by sweetness.

And just in case you need something to connect these legal cases with real people, take a look at Rosemary’s post this morning in which she writes about the ordinariness of the wonder of Duncan and Kenneth plighting their troth.

Today is 1 August and that is a traditional day in Scotland which has a name and a heritage and a series of traditions around it.

And I bet most people these days don’t know what it is.

Today, 1 August is Lammas Day – one of the Scottish Term Days, similar to the English Quarter Days. These were the days on which rents were paid and servants were hired, and the day on which the clergy stipends were due.

In old fashioned terms, it was a day of reckoning. A day when the tabs were all added up. The balance sheets balanced. Debts were settled. And a line was drawn under what had gone before in order to provide for a clean sheet to begin business again.

I’ll come back to the idea of a day of reckoning in a bit, for Jesus certainly seemed in the gospel to be speaking about the day of reckoning that comes of each of us and about the nature of the balance sheet that we are left with at the end of life. I’ll come back to that in a minute, but first I want to stay with this image of Lammastide for a moment for there is a bit more that I want to draw out of it.
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Ruth has the skinny on the Inclusive Language amendments that the College of Bishops has licensed for permitted use.

The paper proclaiming these amendments has not reached these parts and I’m not sure what that situation means liturgically.

Most of the amendments are not particularly surprising, and indeed, some of them have been in use for many years in St Mary’s, licensed more by the gentle nodding of one mitre or another than by any more troublesome process.

I’m in favour of using language that does not leave people feeling left out of worship. It seems to me to be more a matter of politeness than theology. And theology is trumped by politesse as all good Anglicans know.

Here in St Mary’s we do have an inclusive language policy and so incorporting the amendments which are now on offer and which we don’t already include will happen without, I suspect, any fuss at all.

Generally speaking at St Mary’s, you can expect to find us trying to use language that is inclusive of persons at all modern language services. Choral Evensong and the 1970 Liturgy we don’t mess too much with. We try to use inclusive language in hymnody and actively look for inclusive versions of hymns. That’s been the tradition since long before I got here. Its also harder to do than it seems.

There are a small number of exceptions which I do allow through the net. Dear Lord and Father of mankind is a hymn I can’t quite bear to lose and can’t quite bear to change the first line of. The other obvious one from the past is He who would valient be. It seems to both myself and to the director of music that its permissable to allow exclusive language in hymns which directly address the reality of hobgoblins.

I’m no pushover though. Some things just don’t get sung no more, no more. Firmly I may believe and truely, but it won’t be sung here whilst I am provost.

We try to use a wide variety of imagery relating to God in what we sing here. That means looking out for hymns which use things other than male language (Father, Lord, King) to balance those which do use such language.

As always with hymns, you can’t please everyone. However I think our hymnody is, whilst tending occasionally towards the eccentric, the most exciting I’ve found anywhere.

Christmas Carols can be trouble, whichever way you approach them. And I’ve been planning Christmas just this week.

As for the new amendments that the Bishops are permitting, I welcome the texts. I don’t welcome the way this has been done. If it was worth doing, it was worth going through a synodical process and amending the actual texts so that these were for everyone and not simply options. That’s what we have always done before. This method rather makes one feel that the Fathers think that they know better than the rest of us and don’t really think this is that important.

Not quite the desired message when dealing with issues of inclusivity, I’d have said.

(Indeed, I think I did say so at General Synod last year, if I remember rightly).

We had a great day on Sunday at St Mary’s. The Feast of St James in the morning was a lovely interlude into the usual summer Sunday calendar and then a special Choral Evensong sung by the Choir of St Paul’s on the Green, Norwalk, Connecticut.

They had been in Lincoln for a week singing the services in Lincoln Cathedral and then were going to Edinburgh for this week.

So, why were they so keen to come across and sing in St Mary’s?

Well, it seems that the connection was about more than just music. You see, as I found out on Sunday morning, St Paul’s, Norwalk is another church which is blessed with paintings by Gwyneth Leech, the artist whose murals bring so much joy to St Mary’s.

Gwyneth painted a set of Stations of the Cross for them which now hang permanently in the church. Also, if you go to their web-page and watch through the cycle of pictures, you can see adorning their west wall, a familiar scene. Well, familiar if you know either Kelvingrove Park or the magnificent tryptich in St Anne’s Chapel here in the Cathedral in Glasgow.

A little bit of Glasgow in CT.

Who knew?

I just want to applaud Bishop David asking us what we think he should say to the Pope later this year.

That’s such a good use of a Primus’s blog. I hope he gets plenty of comments.

Here is a quick video of the Botafumeiro swinging in Compostella last year as promised in the sermon this morning.

Commentary is a bit intrusive. Watch out for the brilliant catch and swirl movement by the chief tiraboleiro as it is brought to rest at the end.

There is a simulation of how it works here, which I’ve a feeling I posted once before.