In this session we will think about the abundance of our talents and skills – God’s gifts within us. Are some more valuable than others? What is God calling us to do in the world?
Mary-Cate Garden: On Being Away
This week’s article comes from someone who was part of the St Mary’s congregation when living in Glasgow a few years ago, reflecting on that experience and on the impact that St Mary’s has made on her life since.
On being away: thinking (always) of St Mary’s:
I first came to St Mary’s at the end of a November. I’d had a bit of a bad go in another parish and I needed to find a home. The very first night I came—a little uncertain—I forgot my keys behind on a pew when I left after Evensong. Unable to get into my house and without my mobile I called the number listed on the bulletin from what had to be the nastiest, oldest phone booth in all of Partick. It took a while to connect with the Provost because he was out with the choir and servers but eventually we connected and keys and I were reunited.
A few weeks later when I came to speak to the Provost about coming to St Mary’s to perhaps join this congregation we met in the Parish office in the dark of late November/early December. As we met in his office I could hear fireworks going off for St Andrew’s day and as I left the sky was lit up. The very next Sunday—my first official day—coincidentally we had ‘champagne’ (it was fizzy and alcoholic) after the service and I knew that this was a “GOOD” place and a place for me.
It was in those first moments when I fetched up at St Mary’s, a bit wounded and needing to be there but also needing to be by myself with space around me, that I knew that St Mary’s was a place that offered welcome. Later, I came to understand that St Mary’s knew how to welcome, that the congregation had space for me. And this is, in a few words, is one of things that I remember most about St Mary’s: ‘welcome’ and ‘houseroom’. When I came to that first Evensong I knew that there was a place for me and for everyone else who found themselves at the Cathedral’s doors. A measure of that welcome, of that community, of the hospitality that St Mary’s offers is that it doesn’t just happen on the first day or in the fact that people say hello to you when you’re new. It happens all.the.time, over and over and over again.
For me—now that I am far away from St Mary’s and from Glasgow—what I remember best are the things large and small that come to me all the time. It’s that wall of noise that rose up when, after many tensions and a lot of worry, that first moment of coming together as Bishop Gene Robinson and the clergy, choir and servers processed to the altar on that glorious occasion when we all came together as God’s children and when the work of the Holy Spirit was made manifest in joy and in song. It is knowing that the list of the names of loved ones remembered on All Souls is kept close on the High Altar and in the body of the Church throughout all the year. It’s that amazing cacophony of sound on Pentecost as the many voices are raised up in their own languages. It’s the laughter before, after and sometimes during the services. It’s being welcomed into St Mary’s with prayer and it’s learning about prayer each and every Sunday. It’s about walking from my flat in Partick up the hill, over the river until I caught that first peek of the steeple and knew that I was coming home. It was about finding a place where I knew I could be most myself before God.
St Mary’s was where I grew in my own faith as I was both embraced and challenged. Challenged by different ways of doing and thinking about liturgy and worship but, at the same time knowing that we were all there for the same reason and that we knew why we had come together. Many times this came in everyday ways when the Holy Spirit was at work in quiet, ordinary ways. Sitting with a knitting group of an evening; that commitment to practical faith seen all the time and in so many and manifested in walking, meeting and doing; and seen in the ever-present sense of community, Whether community came in sharing a sleepy early Easter morning as the Paschal fire was lit and the smell of incense mingled with the smell of bacon cooking our breakfast or whether it came in the vision and mission of the Cathedral ‘open, inclusive and welcoming’ found everywhere from bulletin to website to the hearts of congregants.
Beyond that gift of welcome and community St Mary’s also gave me another gift. It was at St Mary’s that I was able to begin to articulate something that increasingly demanded my attention. St Mary’s was where I came face to face with my vocation, with my own call to priesthood. At the time I knew only that St Mary’s, as many places had, formed me. Since then I have talked about St Mary’s to others, used it as an example of a healthy, vibrant, loving, and growing church. St Mary’s has always had a place in my heart; now I use it in my vocation and formation. It was at St Mary’s that I learned what a Cathedral could and should be. It’s that ‘standard’ that I’ve set as benchmark for other cathedrals: for being community and for being in community
I’ve always thought it was significant that it was Advent Sunday when I first properly came to St Mary’s. As Advent is the beginning of the Church year, so Advent Sunday was the beginning of my journey with St Mary’s. Not only was it the beginning it was a time both of the season and in my own faith journey that was a bit dark. And as the fireworks lit the sky when I met with the Provost, so there was light in the dark and for me St Mary’s will always be remembered as being that light.
[Image Credit:www.freeimages.com / Ni Rocha]
Sermon preached on 18 October 2015
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Forum on Icons with Michael Dimi Lekakis
Sophie Agrell: In the steps of St Ninian
The cathedral was dim, a far cry from its Sunday brightness, as we, warmly dressed and sensibly shod, put down our bags and rucksacks and gathered in a circle of friends and strangers around the altar. We prepared ourselves to journey towards the sea with St Brendan’s prayer in preparation for setting sail, the prayer of a man preparing to leave all he knew for a strange land as so many did in the early centuries of the church, and so many thousands do today.
“Shall I turn my back on my native land, and turn my face towards the sea? Towards the elements, the noise, the wind, the spray, the hostility, the misunderstanding, the abuse, the ridicule, the uncertainty, the fear, the isolation?”
Unlike early Christian explorers or modern refugees, our journey was not a final departure laden with fear and supported only by trust in God but a day pilgrimage to Whithorn, undertaken in modern comfort on a luxury coach by our group of 32 pilgrims, led by Rev Cedric Blakey and Rev Kirstin Freeman.
It is a surprisingly long way to Whithorn, particularly when a closure on the A77 sent us on a winding diversion through many extra miles of the beautiful countryside of the south west of Scotland. When we arrived at Whithorn, we were very thankful for the thoughtfulness of the kind people at the Whithorn Trust visitor centre, who had arranged tea and coffee in generous quantity in an upstairs room. Some of us – me among them – felt an imperative need for cake after the early start and long journey and were not disappointed. The baking in the visitor centre cafe is notably good!
Suitably refreshed, we were driven out beyond the town to our first real ‘destination’ – St Ninian’s cave. Like so many other figures in the early church and since, Ninian is said to have spent time in a cave on the beach, seeking quiet and space to pray and meditate away from the community in which he lived. Approached through a wooded glen, the bay gives a tremendous sense of peace even today with no houses visible, just the pebble beach with sea-rounded stones in a variety of colours.
The cave itself is small and narrow, marked by centuries of inscriptions from visiting pilgrims, some of whom have also left stones from the beach or small crosses as symbols of their prayer, intent or presence. The site has been a place of pilgrimage for over 1000 years, with the earliest carvings (now in the Whithorn museum) dating from the 700s or 800s.
We gathered in a circle outside the cave for a very simple short Eucharist, led by Rev Kirstin Freeman. A central element of the service was the idea of laying down the burdens of worry, anxiety for self or others, the need for forgiveness that we had carried on our pilgrimage. In turn, we each poured out a little water from a glass as a symbol of all that we were relinquishing and laying down in God’s care. It was very peaceful with the sole accompaniment to our prayers the rapid rhythm of the waves sweeping onto the rocks in front of the cave and the slightly softer sound as each wave ran up the pebble beach.
Thus spiritually refreshed, it was time for bodily sustenance and we scattered to find picnic spots and enjoy the surprisingly warm sunshine and the beauty of the sea. For many people, this quiet relaxed time on the beach was the highlight of the day – certainly it was for me.
All too soon it was time to return to the bus (pausing to pick brambles) and to Whithorn itself where the group again separated to make the most of the warm, sunny afternoon as seemed best to them, whether eating ice cream, taking a guided tour of the archaeology or heading for a pub to watch Scotland’s crucial game against Samoa (Scotland won!) in the Rugby Union World Cup.
I explored the ruined priory, built to house the relics of St Ninian. The Romanesque ruins we now see form part of what became a far larger structure, a combination of cathedral, priory and parish church, although it is hard to get a sense of the scale of the mediaeval structures, so completely have they vanished beneath the old graveyard, itself full of old stones telling complicated stories of families’ misfortunes, long lives or the kindness of friends.
Earlier stones, mostly dating from the tenth and eleventh century and unearthed in Whithorn and the surrounding area, form the core of the priory museum. While the ‘Latinus stone’, Scotland’s earliest Christian monument with a Latin inscription and a chi-rho symbol is probably considered the ‘star exhibit’, I particularly enjoyed some of the stones with ‘Celtic’ interlace patterns – not least because the carvers made mistakes! Seeing the points where a curve had been carved in the wrong direction or a mistake made in the rhythm of the pattern made the long-dead carvers human and living for me in a way perfection could not.
After tea, more delicious cake and a brief service in the priory ruins, it was time to head north back to Glasgow where eventually tired pilgrims arrived, enriched by history and the beauty of Whithorn and St Ninian’s bay.
Sermon preached on 11 October 2015 by Cedric Blakey
Gifts and Skills – Week 2
Session 2 Me and God
In the second session we will consider further our relationship with God – how do we hear God, what gets in the way of that process? How can we be more present to God? In this process of ‘discerning our gifts and skills’, how will we understand God’s role in our lives and in our flourishing as talented humans?
Gifts and Skills Week 1
In this first session we will get to know one another and think about what has brought us to this course: while this is a personal journey, for these weeks we will accompany one another in our path of discernment. This is an opportunity to take stock. Where are we in our lives? What engages us, what challenges do we face, what experience do we bring? Over the coming weeks we will be developing our practice of reflection and we will start that process at our first meeting.
Anne Jones: Visit to our nearest mosque
Last Friday night, like many Glaswegians throughout the city, I had a curry for dinner. However, I dId not head for the local take away or restaurant, instead I made my way to the Al’Furquan Mosque in the West End of Glasgow, as a guest of the Muslim community there, invited to join them in their celebrations of Eid. It is their custom to ask their neighbours to a meal on these occasions and their guests included members of the local churches as well as students and other folk who live nearby. St Mary’s Cathedral is their nearest church, which is why I was fortunate to be there.
I had never been to such an event before, in fact I had never been to a mosque before, and although I knew the Provost and another member of our congregation would be there, it was with a little apprehension of the unknown that I arrived at the hall next to the mosque for the meal. Within minutes of my arrival I was completely reassured. Three young Muslim women greeted me with smiles, jokes at each other’s expense, and admiration of the interior of St Mary’s, which they had visited out of curiosity. I was whisked into the hall by two of the women and seated at a table near the door. I was early and the room was almost empty. We chatted, how we chatted, about our families, our backgrounds, my role at the Cathedral and their role at an Islamic Centre in a nearby town. Before I knew it the tables had filled up and the proceedings started.
We were formally welcomed by members of the Mosque, including their President. They spoke movingly of their desire for dialogue within their local community and beyond, to ensure all diverse groups could meet together in friendship, acceptance and above all peace. They drew attention to the standing banners, which were arranged round two sides of the hall. One set was entitled The Celtic Crescent, the result of research by members of the mosque to describe the link between Islam and the Celtic history and culture. The other set described the Five Pillars of Islam, faith, prayer, fasting, charity and pilgrimage, which are the five basic acts in Islam and the mainstay of Muslim life. We were told that the Mosque is open five times a day for the prayer, as prescribed by their faith, and were invited to call in at any time.
The buffet meal that followed was delicious and the hospitality most generous. There were twelve tables with ten people at each table and yet very quickly everyone had helped themselves to the fragrant, appetising dishes. Mmmm, the seekh kabab, chicken tikka, baby potatoes, vegetable spring rolls! Yum, vegetable curry, lamb karahi , pilau rice and naan bread! What a feast, what a celebration! And all round the hall the conversation and laughter continued.
While we ate the dessert we heard a young Muslim academic deliver a talk entitled In the Footsteps of Abraham. He told us that the Eid we were celebrating had links with the Hajj (pilgrimage) to the Grand Mosque at Mecca and spoke sadly of the deaths caused this year when a huge crane collapsed on a crowded square and later when an even greater loss of life occurred when pilgrims were crushed to death in the heaving crowds. He described the importance of the sacred history and worship of the prophet Abraham and in quiet, lilting tones sang from the Koran, telling the story of Abraham and his son, Isaac.
It was then time for thanks from the guests. Members of the Church of Scotland, the Reformed Church, Interfaith Scotland and our provost, representing St Mary’s Cathedral, spoke of their appreciation of the opportunity to meet in this way. Kelvin described how part of our Eucharist includes the Peace when the congregation wish each other peace with a handshake. At this point he shook the hand of the President of the Muslim community and said the words, “Peace be with you”.
We knew from the original invitation that the event was due to finish at nine o’clock but when it got near to this time we were told that if anyone would like to go to see what happens at the final prayers of the day in the Mosque then we would be welcome to go along. At this point one of the young women who had welcomed us invited some of us to join her in the women’s upstairs room while she said her prayers before returning home. She explained that she had not attended the earlier prayers and now needed to catch up. She would say the final prayers of the day later at home. We followed her upstairs to a long, bare, softly lit room, the floor covered in a spotless red and gold carpet with individual prayer mats incorporated in the design. We stood in silence while she said her prayers, kneeling and touching the floor with her forehead repeatedly. She prepared then to go home while we went downstairs to the main Mosque. But as she left she turned back, rushed up to me and two young women guests, kissed us in turn and was gone. It was a moving moment.
Downstairs in the main mosque, chairs had been placed at the back for the visitors while at the front the men’s final prayers of the day had begun. The prayers were chanted and the men went through the ritual of standing, kneeling and prostrating themselves. Throughout this time men continued to arrive and afterwards it was explained that latecomers stay behind to complete the whole pattern of prayer.
The evening over the guests drifted out into the Autumn evening. It was a fascinating evening, over too soon, and opened my eyes to a religion and culture I knew only the basics about. It was privilege to have been there.
And I will never forget that young woman rushing back to kiss me.