Philip Anderson
@P_G_Anderson
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Priest of the Church of England. Precentor of Liverpool Cathedral. Formerly of Wigan. Amateur Historian. Liverpudlian.
Liverpool, England
Joined February 2012
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An article I wrote, based on my doctoral research, kindly published in 'Faith & Worship', Trinity 2018. It's about the birth of English Protestantism, and the relationship between a Reformed liturgy, almsgiving, & the deep foundations of our Welfare State:
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From my auntie:
"Happy Birthday, Pip. Don’t think I’m mad if you get two cards from me. It should bolster your faith in human nature. The first one fell off the pram on my way to the post office. If you receive it, it means a stranger has put it in the post. Have a lovely day. X"
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Young British soldiers, thrown into the evacuation effort, catch their breath at Kabul airport.
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A highlight of Pope Benedict's 2010 visit to the United Kingdom is captured here, processing alongside his intellectual and spiritual brother, Rowan Williams, at Westminster Abbey, another S. Peter's, met by that robust hymn, to Purcell's tune: "Christ is made the one foundation"
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David Cannadine invokes Elizabeth I. Many reduced to a quivering mess:
‘It is not my desire to... reign longer than... shall be for your good. And though you have... mightier and wiser princes sitting in this seat, yet you never had, nor shall have, any that will love you better'
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Tonight, before the Maundy Thursday liturgy began, I had a quick conversation with the first person to ask me if he and his partner could arrange a service of blessing.
They're both getting on, have been together forever, and it would mean everything.
"He loved them to the end."
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Bootle, by the North Liverpool docks, went wild in 1953, with elaborate Coronation street decorations. My parents were small children in similar streets. In homage to the patriotic gaiety of those working class communities I will have bunting for the King.
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Flags flying at half-mast on Merseyside's public buildings for the girls murdered in Southport
Members of the Cathedral community couldn't attend worship today, because of the present danger of racist violence on Liverpool's streets
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord
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17th Sunday after Trinity 2020
Announced in Wigan, &
@LivCathedral
today:
@paulbayes
has appointed me next Canon Precentor of Liverpool, responsible for the cathedral's worship, a daily sacrifice of praise.
It's a gigantic honour. I'll miss Wigan so much.
Of your charity, pray.
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My mother is a pillar of her church, volunteer in the masochistic role of parish Safeguarding officer. She had me baptised into Christ via the Church of England.
Showed me the postcard she's sending to our bishops to encourage them to bless gay marriages, member of
@campaign_cofe
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A wedding in Wigan, 2015 Churchwarden, Christie, local butcher, married Derrick, a pie man. I was the Vicar and officiated.
In her mid-40s she underwent a spiritual awakening, during the physical and psychological upheaval of gender reassignment. Became our best evangelist.
#TDOV
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Hearing a lot about air fryers: not enough about this old friend of melted cheese & singletons.
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For the first time in 20 years I had my photograph taken today by a professional.
He captured the expression of relief and delight on my face after evensong; a third lockdown mop of hair; hands clasping a face mask; and the stole, skew-whiff under the gorgeous
@LivCathedral
cope.
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In the 1870s the boy who would become heady, cosmopolitan Greek poet, Constantine P. Cavafy, spent part of his boyhood in the new City of Liverpool. He was a child of the then flourishing, now lost, Hellenic life of Constantinople and Alexandria. His mother rented this house. 1/3
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Today, I was feeling a little downtrodden, robed, sitting in the South Choir Aisle before Evensong. A young man approached, and asked if he could talk with me about getting to know God. We spoke for a little while. He was grieving and had been praying for weeks. He encouraged me.
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All calm as we prepare to welcome city and diocese at 3pm, to pray with
@paulbayes
and receive his final episcopal wisdom and blessing.
At the end he'll walk the length of this longest church, out of the West doors, the choir singing 'Ubi Caritas' by Ola Gjeilo in sweet farewell.
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Pray today for the family of Thomas Adams, 2009-22, son of one of the Cathedral Choir's long-serving deputies. Following his funeral a memorial will be held in the Lady Chapel, where Thomas was baptised by grace into eternal life.
We begin with David's lament, "O Absalom my son."
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A rare wedding at the high altar of the Cathedral yesterday, by the Archbishop's special licence. The Sub Organist married his fiancé - they met bellringing.
The day was a very beautiful one, with many from the Cathedral community sharing their joy. It was a delight to officiate.
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I've too few books. A removals man came quoting, looked at my study (about half the library is visible here), and crushingly announced,
'OK. Standard for the clergy'
Must try harder.
We'll draw a veil over how many of these volumes have been read. Possession is nine tenths, etc.
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My next door neighbour, Mark Loudon, photographer, baker, inseparable husband of
@ellenloudon
, had the gift of capturing the divine at play in the faces of the city. We held his funeral today, and showed some of his work. I look forward to making his better acquaintance in glory.
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My mother sends an arresting picture of a kestrel lured down from the rafters of St Margaret's Church, L8, where it had taken up residence last week and didn't seem inclined to leave.
Hoped to feast on the Holy Spirit, no doubt, in the form of a dove.
What a magnificent creature.
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Epiphany. I pray for Zoroastrians I met in Iran in 2007. The priests of this pre-Islamic religion, worshipping a god of fire, were probably S. Matthew's magi.
Near Yazd stands a Tower of Silence, where the dead were exposed to vultures. A widow tended a flame, her village shrine.
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Interviewed by
@paul_mcauley
last week for
@LivEchonews
, I reflected on my faith in the justice of God since childhood, and personal hopes for the Church around marriage, having been ordained a very long time ago before civil partnerships were ever mooted.
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The Prince of Wales speaking up for persecuted Christians all over the world, honours the Sri Lankans killed on Easter Day, and the many made refugees by the war in Syria.
Pray for the oppressed this Christmas, like the Holy Family, who endured King Herod's tyranny.
@aidtochurch
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A quiet corner at the back of the Lady Chapel of
@LivCathedral
, long used for storing chairs, has been restored as a small chapel commemorating Josephine Butler. She campaigned in the city on behalf of women in sexual slavery, and in daylight can be seen in its Edwardian windows.
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The Duke of Edinburgh served in the Battle of the Atlantic out of Liverpool. And now, many years later, the flag hangs at half mast over the city's Queens Walk, looking West to the horizon, and worlds beyond our sight, known to God.
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Pray for the repose of Philip, a victim of the virus:
"Complete the burial as soon as possible... prayers with prescribed mourners present: spouse or partner, parents, children, each standing 2m apart, and each not showing signs of Covid-19"
There will be no qualifying mourners.
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Really overjoyed that today the Liverpool Diocesan Synod voted to support a motion first framed by Wigan Deanery in 2019, calling on the Church of England to address the growing discrimination against disabled people in the womb, and lack of protection under current legislation.
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Back in the Spring I buried two taxi drivers who worked on the Manchester Airport run. They'd been in their cars for the best part of an hour with multiple passengers returning from Spain, Italy, etc. in the early days when it was still inconceivable our borders might be closed.
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Vivienne and Dalj were made deacons yesterday. They asked if a couple of their official photos could be with me.
We met regularly as they discerned their vocations.
I stepped back from the process last year, becoming conscious I was trying to protect LGBT candidates and failing.
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Taking leave of 2020 they're on my mind, in my prayers. Low in the hierarchy of key workers - overweight, unheroic smokers - and so, in some of the commentary deemed culpable, by snobbery (the original English Virus) for being so careless as to be killed in the service of others.
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Prayers gratefully received.
We are delighted to install Rev Dr Phillip Anderson as Canon Precentor on Sunday. Philip succeeds Canon Myles Davies who retired this year. You can watch the service live on Facebook at 3pm this Sunday.
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Dusk falls on the Second Elizabethan Age.
Great George, heaviest of the highest peal of church bells in the world, tolls out over Liverpool, as for her father in 1952.
@LivCathBells
@LivCathedral
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Bede is consistently joyous in his unfolding of the Gospel, as here on Simeon holding the child Jesus
"The old man received the infant Christ, to convey thereby that this world, now worn out as it were with old age, should return to the childlike innocence of the Christian life."
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Archbishop Sentamu's retirement will deeply affect his wife, Margaret, Pastoral Adviser at my selection conference. Her interview was most forensic. I thought I'd be written off as too young (21). Her part of the subsequent report was much the most encouraging, perceptive & kind.
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Popped into the local pharmacy after Morning Prayer and there was a procession of others, around my age, kindly greeted by name, for their daily methadone, given in a cup over the counter.
Walked back through these streets praying for solid joys and lasting treasures for us all.
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Catherine is a remarkable pillar of the Liverpool Cathedral congregation. She creates highly individual, creative and considered costumes for the high days of the Church’s kalendar.
Her train for Easter Day was magnificent, befitting the scale of this longest church in the world.
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Flabbergasted to learn I'd been nominated this week as a positive LGBT role model, and then on reflection, very touched.
Thank you so much,
@artpunkordinand
!
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A fond farewell and Godspeed today from
@LivCathedral
to beloved verger
@Jonnyaddy24
, after a decade's loyal service to Christ and the people of
@LivDiocese
. Pictured here as Crucifer for the last time. Heartfelt thanks, and prayers go with him as he joins the staff
@bbcathedral
.
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Frank Field RIP
A titan of Merseyside and British politics, his advocacy for the poorest rooted in a faith shaped by the Prayer Book:
"From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: Even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours."
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An hour's vigil for Brianna Ghey, killed last weekend, tonight.
Nobody introduced it, nobody spoke at all. There was a reverent hush, rare in church. Candles, and banners reading Rest in Power.
As we dispersed I felt the power of silence, and its fragility without a shared song.
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One of the most encouraging articles of the week, and in the
@guardian
, on the Christian faith of England's black stars. Acknowledging their spiritual fruits: team spirit; commitment to the poor; godliness - Sterling reading his bible in the dressing room.
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Very moved to read this statement from that towering musical talent, adopted son of Liverpool, embodiment of the best of Russia, Vasily Petrenko:
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The First Sunday in Lent, 2022
Quick reminder of the Church's venerable discipline re fasting and feasting in this season. Sundays are always feasts. This is why Lent starts on a Wednesday. Include the Sundays and by Easter you've been fasting for longer than the Lord. Too much.
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The official Church of England feed is naming women to celebrate on
#IWD2020
All bishops. An excellent list, of course.
Laywomen, however, do most of God's heavy lifting.
Like Rome canonising popes, it's easy for the institution to ask,
'Women...?'
'Bishop X! Y? Z!'
'Job done.'
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Residents of almshouses live on average several years longer than those who enter old age in greater isolation. These communities date back to the middle ages, survived the Reformation, and often still have daily prayers, and eating together, in their DNA.
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Liverpool lament - worship at the Old Hebrew synagogue has stopped, perhaps permanently. Covid hit this elderly congregation hard.
But hopes of revival have also been ravaged by the antisemitic climate in the city that drove out the local MP Louise Ellman.
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The slamming of the doors as
@paulbayes
left
@LivCathedral
was much practised. A coda after he remembered his predecessors at the consecration mark, laid down his crozier, entrusted
@LivDiocese
to
@revdbev
, and
@LivCathChoir
sang hauntingly. Silence.
Then
@livcathorgan
played on.
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Giles Gilbert Scott knew the Georgian streets below his cathedral would be demolished post-war. He sketched a new cityscape, with the Vienna inspired municipal flats interwar Liverpool built abundantly, and public gardens, imagining the church much less enclosed than it ended up.
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On the ferry back to Dover yesterday
@LivCathChoir
sang "You'll Never Walk Alone" as a flash mob on Deck 8.
Passengers and crew gathered round. One girl chorister, turning on the full Scouse, was overheard to remark:
"If ye-s want autographs yous'll all 'ave to come to Liverpool"
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Hiding in the pulpit as the Cathedral fills with worshippers for the final 4pm Carol Service. In
@ellenloudon
's address earlier I'd a walk on part as our architect, Giles Gilbert Scott's phone box, a visual aid about prayer to the 2000+ who came. Poss. our busiest Christmas ever.
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"Best dressed microphone stand in Christendom," as a darling former colleague from Wigan put it.
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I used to live here, in the lit room under the eaves by the green roofed turret, at the opposite end from the tower of Liverpool Parish Church. An all encompassing view of the Liver Building from my bed. The previous resident had been a Glaswegian hermit, who'd retired to Sussex.
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Beaten to the ballot box at 7am at Toxteth Library by the Dean of Liverpool, her dog, Sally, and another neighbour from the Cathedral Close.
#dogsatpollingstations
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Unearthed my ember card - the traditional appeal for prayer before ordination. Using an 18th century typeface and a woodcut of the 'pelican in her piety', aka Liver Bird, I designed them myself. Someone commented on its modesty, on a cheap postcard. My 24 yr old self was made up.
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Re: The Conversion of England. Everyone I met today was buzzing about that sermon. Critics of an "evangelical take-over" of the Church should note: the humility of
@JustinWelby
who proposed
@PB_Curry
as preacher, and the possibility that the prayer
#ThyKingdomCome
is being heard.
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Presentation of Christ, 2021
Today
@LivCathedral
with the choral scholars and other colleagues to discuss Sunday's evensong (3pm) when I'll be installed as Canon Precentor (responsible for the liturgy).
Daily sacrifice of praise ongoing. You can join in:
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Ash Wednesday 2023
Fasting and feasting in Lent. Our fasting should be of restraint and generosity, not starvation. If you're ill/pregnant, do not fast. All Sundays are feasts, even in Lent. Otherwise by Easter you'll have fasted more than 40 days. We are not holier than Christ.
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Advent Sunday's procession "Darkness to Light": music, prayers and scripture is perhaps my favourite act of worship in the year (Easter, excellent; Second Coming, tremendous). Longing for Christ the Alpha & Omega of all things. Here
@LivCathChoir
sing O Radiant Dawn by
@jamesmacm
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Bore the Pink Triangle during
@PrideInLpool
- for Ukraine, where in WWII it marked out men like me for extermination. Some holy conversations prompted by it about remembrance.
Also, saluting those resisting fascism today.
And, as a priest of a Church slow to repent of homophobia.
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When I first walked down into the basement of the conventional bookshop visible from Broad Street, Oxford, into the unexpected caverns of the Norrington Room beneath, as a boy, I fell into a hushed awe; as if approaching the Ark of the Covenant or the core of the nuclear reactor.
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Tomorrow morning the Liverpool Cathedral Guild of Change Ringers attempts a full peal on the world's highest and heaviest church bells, in honour of the Centenary of the Consecration of the church as a place of worship on 19th July 1924. It'll be glorious, and loud.
@LivCathBells
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22 priests were ordained today
@LivCathedral
in three services by
@revdbev
and
@paulbayes
, to the glory of God in
@LivDiocese
.
It was a wonderful day.
@mission_priest
preached on the simplicity of divine love.
I knew many of the candidates, some from Wigan; one, an old classmate.
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Blessed a House
A Friday night reveller, passing by, commented that he thought he'd met a "S**t Batman".
As I was bundled inside, we didn't have an opportunity to discuss my sprig of rosemary, in terms of the more effete side of Bruce Wayne's character, or the Gospel of Salvation
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God save the Queen.
God bless the United States of America.
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Digesting the bishops' letter. How influential this could've been 20 yrs ago, before the first civil partnership.
A new chapter for clergy will be a gift, personally. Too proud to seek a relationship under disapproving clouds; lockdown solitude was hard labour.
Lead, kindly light
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Slipped in to Liverpool Parish Church this morning, on a Sunday off duty from the Cathedral.
@LiverpoolParish
sponsored me for ordination 23 years ago. Leaving, it was heartening to observe the then elderly congregation rejuvenated, many unfamiliar faces in joyful Easter worship.
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The oaks in this beautiful Welsh church ceiling were felled around the time of the Fall of Constantinople. And ever since they were raised have kept the faithful dry, and in peace, receiving centuries of pummelling from Atlantic storms making landfall along the rugged Llŷn coast.
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A small Victorian church, just over the Welsh border, is for sale.
R. S. Thomas was curate here:
"Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak..."
This place's altar is now removed.
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On his feast, giving thanks for St Nick's,
@LiverpoolParish
, which sponsored me towards ordination 20 yrs ago; by the Mersey in the heart of Liverpool, beacon for sailors, haven for human flotsam and jetsam, compass point for navigation, pointing us to Christ who calms the waves.
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My most viewed tweet of the year was the beginning of Psalm 126, over a photo taken this summer, at Liverpool Pride. Posted when the Church of England inched a little closer towards blessing LGBT couples in church.
Mr Robinson, the nonconformist clerical pundit, gave it a boost.
WHEN the LORD turned again the captivity of Sion, then were we like them that dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter & our tongue with joy.
Then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.
Yea, the LORD hath done great things for us
#synod2023
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Extraordinary how much attention is given in Britain to US politics, while tomorrow, in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections Sinn Fein, still entwined with the IRA, may take the office of First Minister, and look set to do likewise next year in Dublin.
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Rare action shot, looking like I've landed from c. 1960.
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Round the corner from the Cavafy Huskisson Street home is the city's Orthodox church built in 1870 by Greek migrants, symbol of Byzantium in Toxteth.
One of his most celebrated poems, "Waiting for the Barbarians" came to mind, seeing this forlorn shoe:
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In the best traditions of our Carolean Age, we've adopted the royal family's custom of handing clothes down the generations. In my case my dad's old jumper - St Michael's Pure New Wool, c.1978. I remember him wearing it when I was a little boy, in the days when he smoked a pipe.
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Liverpool Cathedral is the longest church building in the world. It's 189m from the west door to the Lady Chapel's east window.
The boat jammed in the Suez Canal,
#EverGivenShip
, is over twice as long, 400m, and taller than the cathedral roof. It's dwarfed only by the 100m tower.
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Notre Dame, Paris, is in flames.
Sir Kenneth Clark chose the great survivor of Revolution & Occupation as the backdrop to his 1969 TV series 'Civilisation'.
"What is civilisation?"
"I don't know", turning to look at the cathedral,
"but I think I can recognise it when I see it."
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Terry Eagleton on
@holland_tom
's "Dominion":
"Love for the New Testament is a social practice, not a sentiment. How you feel about the person whose place you take in the queue for the gas chambers is neither here nor there. You don’t even have to know him"
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WHEN the LORD turned again the captivity of Sion, then were we like them that dream.
Then was our mouth filled with laughter & our tongue with joy.
Then said they among the heathen, The LORD hath done great things for them.
Yea, the LORD hath done great things for us
#synod2023
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The death of Jan Morris, after all the other news of the week, is an occasion to recall that the Church of England has been marrying transgender people since 2004.
My churchwarden's wedding was one such, it stood out mainly because of the intensity of her devotional preparation.
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Special Stamps issued by the Royal Mail, designed by a woodcut artist, bring out traditional values of love of God, Neighbourhood, Commonwealth, and the Earth. Ancient, radical foundations of our common life, rather than the unbridled self, or profit. First Archbishop on a stamp?
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"I was glad when they said unto me we will go into the house of the Lord..."
@LivCathChoir
expressing the heartfelt feelings of many this evening at
@LightNightLpool
.
@LivCathedral
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Just read
@DrSueOosthuizen
's punchy "The Emergence of the English", on what happened after the Romans left Britain. Probably not a huge invasion.
But,
@DrFrancisYoung
asks, how then do we explain the switch between 410 & 597 in language & religion?
Brilliantly stimulating stuff.
Everything you thought you knew about early England is wrong: my extended review of
@DrSueOosthuizen
's brilliant book The Emergence of the English
@ArcHumanities
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Any fool knows Wallace and Gromit are Wiganers, residents of a mythical terrace on West Wallaby Street. They're therefore stout Royalists, as the town's old motto declares: "Ancient and Loyal".
Criminality in a gallery has all the hallmarks of their arch-nemesis, Feathers McGraw.
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After the sixth service of an ordinary Sunday, after the last worshipper has gone, just before the lights are turned off for the night; hundreds of candles flicker silently, representing people who have remembered and been remembered, in prayer today, both the quick and the dead.
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Honoured to act as subdeacon at the ordination of deacons, whispering their names to the Bishop - including my v. sound friend, The Rev'd Lilly Nelson, who I first met in the Cathedral, exploring her vocation - a Prayer Book aficionado with an excellent new handle:
@Punkdimmitis
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From Lineker's opening, "Why aren't you at church?", to jokes about passing round the collection plate with Frank Skinner, and "God gave you a talent" in the players' montage, the BBC's coverage of the football is like a very long episode of Songs of Praise, with a better budget.
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We formally welcome the Ninth Bishop of Liverpool this afternoon. God bless
@JPerumbalath
, and all the souls entrusted to his care.
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Prayers for the Princess of Wales, who pours coals of grace on the heads of all the grim speculators, as she shares her physical vulnerability and spiritual strength today. Vivat.
A message from Catherine, The Princess of Wales
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