EVERY BLESSED THING
An evening with George Macleod
Wild Goose Publications
A Christmas Present with a Difference!
Something for your friends this Christmas.
A Double CD Being sold in aid of The Growing Hope Appeal at £17.99
Reviewed by Murdoch MacKenzie
Unlike small boys prophets are meant to be heard and not seen. To read George MacLeod’s prayers is one thing but to hear him actually breathing the words is, quite literally, to touch the lichen on the rocks and to taste the tang of the seaweed. Through the Triune genius of Tom Fleming, Ron Ferguson and George himself he, being dead, yet speaketh!
Just shut your eyes and let this double CD transport you once more into the very presence of the Lord of Buffoonery. Allow yourself to be mugged once again in the East end of Glasgow and to be deeply moved and not a little disturbed by the quite uncanny way in which Tom has mastered George’s accent and inflections, and by the inimitable way in which Ron, in the midst of time, has given us glimpses of eternity.
Listen to George uncomfortably raising the unanswered questions which linger on from the twentieth century beginning with: ‘Why do Presbyterian ministers speak longer than other men? They don’t. It just seems longer!’ Two hours later, at the age of 96, he ends by asking: ‘Why do Presbyterian ministers live longer than other people? They don’t. It just seems longer!’ In between we have George MacLeod in full flight with his humour, all the old familiar phrases and awkward challenges, an Agile and Suffering Highlander half-way towards Rome and half-way towards Moscow. We hear of his encounters with Oswald Moseley, Billy Graham, Ian Paisley and the Church of Scotland General Assembly.
We learn over again that ‘Australia is very good for the body but dangerous for the soul’ , of a lad of nine who was ‘only two handshakes away from Bonnie Prince Charlie’, of George telling Harold Wilson that he would ‘sit on the cross-benches getting crosser and crosser’, of ‘analysis paralysis’, of ‘non-violence or non-existence’, of Community men hanging out their washing on a Sunday, of ‘the money men sowing the seeds of the next world war’, of Jesus Christ ‘in whom every thing becomes Every Blessed Thing as the whole earth cries glory’ and of ‘ a veil thin as gossamer.’
If you want compelling listening, this is it! If not, I hope you have a dull life!
Murdoch MacKenzie
Murdoch MacKenzie joined the Community in 1965 and in 1996 had the delight of presiding over the installation of Ruth Harvey as Director of The Living Spirituality Network at which, two hundred people shared oatcakes and honey, and Tom Fleming gave a rendering of ‘Every Blessed Thing’.
An evening with George Macleod
Wild Goose Publications
A Christmas Present with a Difference!
Something for your friends this Christmas.
A Double CD Being sold in aid of The Growing Hope Appeal at £17.99
Reviewed by Murdoch MacKenzie
Unlike small boys prophets are meant to be heard and not seen. To read George MacLeod’s prayers is one thing but to hear him actually breathing the words is, quite literally, to touch the lichen on the rocks and to taste the tang of the seaweed. Through the Triune genius of Tom Fleming, Ron Ferguson and George himself he, being dead, yet speaketh!
Just shut your eyes and let this double CD transport you once more into the very presence of the Lord of Buffoonery. Allow yourself to be mugged once again in the East end of Glasgow and to be deeply moved and not a little disturbed by the quite uncanny way in which Tom has mastered George’s accent and inflections, and by the inimitable way in which Ron, in the midst of time, has given us glimpses of eternity.
Listen to George uncomfortably raising the unanswered questions which linger on from the twentieth century beginning with: ‘Why do Presbyterian ministers speak longer than other men? They don’t. It just seems longer!’ Two hours later, at the age of 96, he ends by asking: ‘Why do Presbyterian ministers live longer than other people? They don’t. It just seems longer!’ In between we have George MacLeod in full flight with his humour, all the old familiar phrases and awkward challenges, an Agile and Suffering Highlander half-way towards Rome and half-way towards Moscow. We hear of his encounters with Oswald Moseley, Billy Graham, Ian Paisley and the Church of Scotland General Assembly.
We learn over again that ‘Australia is very good for the body but dangerous for the soul’ , of a lad of nine who was ‘only two handshakes away from Bonnie Prince Charlie’, of George telling Harold Wilson that he would ‘sit on the cross-benches getting crosser and crosser’, of ‘analysis paralysis’, of ‘non-violence or non-existence’, of Community men hanging out their washing on a Sunday, of ‘the money men sowing the seeds of the next world war’, of Jesus Christ ‘in whom every thing becomes Every Blessed Thing as the whole earth cries glory’ and of ‘ a veil thin as gossamer.’
If you want compelling listening, this is it! If not, I hope you have a dull life!
Murdoch MacKenzie
Murdoch MacKenzie joined the Community in 1965 and in 1996 had the delight of presiding over the installation of Ruth Harvey as Director of The Living Spirituality Network at which, two hundred people shared oatcakes and honey, and Tom Fleming gave a rendering of ‘Every Blessed Thing’.