50 things you ought to know about me:
I love the colour purple
I used to be a paid-up member of the Scottish Socialist Party, LibDems & SNP
I am an ENFP
I LOVE books
My favourite old movie is Random Harvest
I love the smell of incense
Jo Malone candles are my favourite (especially Pomegranite Noir)
I have a phobia about tulips – especially cut ones in a vase when they start to droop
I was a tomboy
I was ordained by two bishops
I love John Duncan’s painting ‘St Bride’
Iona holds a special place in my heart
If I could go anywhere in the world it would be back to Florence or Assisi
I don’t like olives or celery
I love to look at sunlight on water
My computer knowlege is all self-taught
I used to be a Sign Writer and Graphic Designer
Injustice makes me angry
Going to St Michael and All Saints is like going home
I don’t do gardening
New York was a surprise and a delight
You’ll find me on Facebook, Twitter, Google+
I have two handsome sons
I am passionate about liturgy
I helped set up Changing Attitude Scotland
Angel perfume is one of my favourites
Bowie was the soundtrack to my life
I can recite The Return of Albert by Stanley Holloway
Sport is not my thing
Once I did an after-dinner speech to a Ladies Golf Club and got paid for it
I never drink alone
St Rita is my favourite saint
I have a rather large collection of religious tat
My memory is not what it used to be
My favourite hymn is I Heard The Voice of Jesus Say
I don’t play any musical instruments but wish I did
Sean Connery does it for me
I may be an attention seeker
Medicine holds a fascination for me
Love new technology but wish I had more time to play with it
I won a prize for handwriting in primary school
During the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh (1970) I helped at scoring for Fencing
Puffins make me smile
I have no sense of direction
Jesus is the man
I love the Archers
I met Kenneth Leech several times and he’s a hero
Moisturiser is a must
Moths get me moving
I have never been a member of any other denomination
RevRuth's Rantings 
I like Angel and St. Rita too!
I’ll eat olives and celery if they are finely chopped and hidden within some other food. Otherwise, I’m with you.
Lindy
Wow! Hardly anyone has ever heard of St Rita. She’s the best!
Arrived here via Tom Allen and am now getting all excited at similarities along the way – in faith, politics and literature though not in the kitchen. And earlier this year I ?had supper/ with Ken Leech. I’m still wondering if that means that I ought to be in awe of myself, as someone who has met him 🙂
Oh Ken is my biggest hero, so you must be too! Good to meet you, Kathryn.
Hi Ruth…
I think i met you a couple of times at St Peter’s Linlithgow!
One time there was an amazing, lump-in-the-throat prayer, which i can’t remember exactly, but it was something along the lines of ‘come not because __________ because you want to love God better’… something like that.
I’d written to tell you how much it moved me, and you were so lovely and emailed it to me, complete with a bit of history about the author!
(i’ve since lost it again, but if you felt so inclined to give me it again, I *promise* to lose it never again!!
I’ve seen you on Facebook, so if i ask you to friend me there… let’s be friends! 😉
Tracey
HI Tracey,
thanks for stopping by. Here is the prayer (adapted from George MacLeod who founded the Iona Community):
Come, not because you are strong but because you are weak.
Come, not because of any goodness of your own but because you need mercy and help.
Come, because you love the Lord a little and would like to love him more.
Come, because he loves you and gave himself for you.
This is familiar, and I have found it again ! Thanks , I will use it in intercessions if I may , Lynda
You’re such a star… thanks (again!!)
Thanks for your comments on Bishop Alan’s Blog about curates being bullied by incumbents. I am one such curate who has been bullied for 2 years by an insecure incumbent (who incidentally is only in his 40’s)which has resulted in my being ill for several months. But I made the mistake of telling an Archdeacon and a Bishop what was happening. Huge mistake! Now I’m considered as unfit and unable to cope who probably will end up having to resign, just for speaking the truth. Why do they find it so hard to believe that incumbents could do this?
It was really refreshing and encouraging to see you ‘speak up’ about this common, but often hidden problem.
J
Jas, I do feel for you and you are in my prayers. My training incumbent, also in his 40s, behaved atrociously towards me (and members of the congregation) and caused me to be off sick for 3 months before I was allowed to move. Although i suspect the Bishop didn’t really believe what I told him, he did eventually agree to move me. But i will never forget that feeling of helplessness and despair.
I think one of the problems is that curacies are given to churches who can afford curates and not to the clergy who might be good trainers. And so many of them seem to find young curates brimming with new ideas and fresh expressions of church threatening. So sad.
Please don’t resign. Keep asking for a new curacy. Do you have a Spiritual Director who is respected by the bishop who could speak up for you? If not, get one. And I shall keep you in my prayers.
Jas, I don’t have your email address but if you read this again please check out BALMnet (www.balmnet.co.uk) which you may find helpful. Someone who studies this subject passed it on to me.
(Always enjoy reading your blog, but tend to lurk in the shadows.)
I think that’s marvellous about scoring for fencing! Are you a former fencer, or was it just one of those odd things that happens in life?
And as a boring organist obsessed with hymn tunes: Kingsfold or Rowan Tree (or neither) for “I heard the voice”?
Yes Cal, I took up fencing at school to avoid Country Dancing, if I remember correctly. Our coach was Bert Bracewell who had also coached the Olympic Team so he was pretty good. We travelled round Scotland playing other schools and having a great time. I was never very good – didn’t have the killer instinct – but quite good technically so I trained to become a coach. Then I left school and you know how it is…
Love Kingsfold and don’t know Rowan Tree so will go and look it up. But I love Kingsfold,,, did I mention that? Love it!
The only version of Rowan Tree I can find online is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgZ8d0zoRg It’s okay, but not marvellous. As Jean Brodie said … for those who like that kind of thing, that is the kind of thing they like!
Thanks Cal. I love it! Which is your favourite?
And another thing you might not know… I went to Gillespie’s – the same school as Muriel Spark who wrote The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and based it on Gillespie’s.
Fancy that! So did my mother, who remembers the school being asked by the production company to use the then Gillespie Girls as extras, and being turned down. I think she had just left, in 1968ish?
My sister was chosen as an 8 year old. I wasn’t. She never let me forget it.
Small world, huh?
Hi Rev Ruth
I discovered your blog because of your Thomas painting. I did a search for a picture of the doubting Thomas and was absolutely delighted to find this modern day depiction of an old masterpiece.
I scrutinized every corner of your blog to see if there were some more paintings and was quite disappointed when there weren’t any. I wondered why you named the blog Rev Ruth’s Paintings when there was only one painting to be seen. I looked closely again to your heading and only then saw that it said Rev Ruth’s Rantings…!
But to get back to my question… where can I see some more of your paintings?
Oh dear, how embarrassing. If you hover over the painting with your mouse you will see the name of it and the artist. Not me!
Hi Ruth
About You and the above twitter at RT @BishKevin: “off to bless yet another puffin.” #pisky Don’t forget the shags too.” I am a stranger to TWITTER and not sure who is addressing whom.
It seems puffins make you smile : which is nice ! We Argyll and The Isles Puffins hope we will continue to do so and that you will grow to love us and take us seriously despite our clownish orange beaks and our clumsy gait. The isles, lochs, hills and the sea are our spiritual home and the centre of our universe, however like Ultima Thule it may seem!
As for the second remark, I hope there was no hint of innuendo and that the subject referred to was Phalacrocorax Aristotelis. Now THEY are ominous and dangerous to clerics in any form they may take and should be blessed and thereafter avoided. Le mo Bheannachdan John
Hi John
Whenever I visit Bishop Kevin, and I hope to do so often, then I will keep an eye out for puffins to make me smile and Phalacrocorax Aristotelis and duck. And I shall also look out for a John McFarlane to hug!
Rx
Just browsing through and realised how much we have in common: purple-loving, Archers-listening, ENFP who likes Harry Potter and dislikes sport and for whom Iona is a special place – and I love ‘I heard the voice of Jesus say’ (though I’ve been converted to The Rowan Tree as the preferred tune)…Zam xx
I do like the Rowan Tree version but still prefer the other. Do the Iona Community use the Rowan Tree one then?
Greetings, RevRuth, from an INFJ who also doesn’t do gardening – well, only grudgingly, and in the days when I had one and therefore felt I had to if only for the poor vegetation’s sake!
Have enjoyed my visit to your blog, esp as no longer connected with the church. I suspect you’d love visiting the old Franciscan monastery, formal gardens (a fine place for peaceful contemplation) and the delightful museum of the Order’s history housed in the old monastery dorter.
Shall pop into St Rita’s gaff in the Old Town this am, and say one for you.
Welcome Minnie. Where is this monastery?
I don’t like olives or celery, either. Olives are like evil grapes; celery is like evil ice-burg lettuce.
Oddly, nothing about hairy forearms in that list. 😉
Olives ARE evil grapes! How right you are. First time I ever ate one I thought it was a big black juicy grape. It wasn’t.
Must amend the list. How could I have forgotten the forearms? 😉
I’m INFP, or sometimes INTP. That apparently makes me an idealistic architect … which is quite spot on. 🙂
I know nothing about St.Rita but I read her name on your blog and then heard it again later in the day! Coincidence or Godincidence?!
Godincidence without a doubt. And just today I met a young boy serving at my home church who told me he had a great devotion to her. She’s popping up in everyone’s life.