July 2010 – For the fainthearted . . .

Changing names

Dinner table conversations in our family are increasingly odd. The dogs lurked beneath the table in the hope of scraps. (Pavlovian theory suggest that by now the dogs should have realized that their efforts are pointless; that squeezing between the chairs does not bring any reward other than causing them discomfort. Either Pavlov was wrong, or someone feeds them under the table).

“Your coat is lovely and silken, Bella.”

“Wasn’t there someone called Silken Thomas?”

“Wasn’t he around in Cromwell’s time?”

“Or was it during the English Civil War?”

(Wrong …

Sermon for Sunday, 1st August 2010 (Ninth Sunday after Trinity/Proper 13)

“I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.” Luke 12:19

Wouldn’t the arrogance of the rich man Jesus describes have fitted perfectly in the Celtic Tiger years? Wouldn’t he have made a perfect companion for the head of Anglo-Irish Bank who declared, “we worked the scene and maximised the moment, the world watched in astonishment”. ‘You fool!’, says God to the rich man; ’you fools’ he would say to those in our own time, “This …

Not a wedding anniversary

Had things turned out differently, it would have been the 29th wedding anniversary of Charles and Diana today. Google her name, and she is still providing news stories almost thirteen years after her death.

The Net still abounds with stories that her death was the result of a conspiracy. Motivations advanced for such a conspiracy include suggestions that Diana intended to marry Dodi Al-Fayed, that she intended to convert to Islam, that she was pregnant, and that she was to visit the holy land. Organizations which conspiracy theorists suggest are …

Getting on

Turning off the radio, “I could have produced that programme”, I thought: a piece with two voices interspersed with interview clips with third parties. I used to produce radio pieces for an independent station, editing them in the studios of an independent Christian group in Belfast. Once, I made a whole programme, a 27 minute item called “A Summer with a Marching Band”; I went out with a local accordion band and talked with them about their traditions and their thoughts.

The radio work had to be abandoned when a …

Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us

Sermon written for the midweek service at Borris-in-Ossory Church, Co Laois on Wednesday, 28th July 2010

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are–yet was without sin”. Hebrews 4:15

Everything known about James Edmeston, writer of ‘Lead us, heavenly Father, lead us’ seems to have been condensed into a single paragraph, leaving us to try to make deductions about his thoughts as he wrote the hymn. Perhaps, …

Silent clerics

Dean Mosson is looking particularly glum this evening; he was to have travelled to Dublin tomorrow for restoration work, but was too big to fit into the car that called for him.

He hung for years on the deanery stairway wall with passers by assuming him to be Jonathan Swift. Only when the portrait was removed to protect it during renovation work did his true identity emerge; notes attached to the back of the canvas, which had not been seen through the frame being screwed to the wall, identified him …