Sights I've never seen before.

I was in Glasgow today, recce-ing an old folks outing (disabled access - check, parking - check, cafe - not open till June 7, so we'll not be going there on June 6). Killed some time waiting for the traffic to calm down with a wee wander round the toon centre and a large espresso. As I wandered along the side of the Clyde, I came across this rather impressive memorial thingy to the Scottish Volunteers in the Spanish Civil War. (You'll need to twist a bit to see it properly - I haven't learnt how to rotate it yet! Aside from wondering why such a secular monument should be so very like a crucifix in design (really odd that, as so many of the old time Clyde side radicals who went off to fight Franco and the Fascists were card carrying Communists and fiercely intellectually convinced atheists), I found the inscription very powerful and moving.

"It is better to die on your feet, than to live forever on your knees." (La Pasionara)

It struck me that could be a very good motto for anyone like me who has broken away from a life inhibiting, soul destroying Conservative faith and theology and found a more positive, liberating and life affirming one. It could also be a powerful battle cry for progressive Anglicans as we approach Lambeth. We are not going back into kneeling position in thrall to a reactionary theology to please a majority or even ++Rowan Williams (who has an awful job, but who really seems to have given up on his progressive principles in the quest to preserve a rather spurious unity). Jesus prayed standing up: as a beloved yet mature child facing the Father as he had been destined to. We are children of God through Grace and Adoption and it is better for the Anglican experiment to split in two than for us to default as requested by Archbishop Akinola et al into the kneeling, whimpering infant begging for forgiveness.

Or as I've heard it put elsewhere: "We're here (editor's blank) - get used to it! Fill in the blank for yourselves.