St James
Scottish Episcopal Church in Leith Edinburgh
All are welcome here
These words are inscribed on the stone lintel above our front door; they're as true today as when they were first carved on the wall of one of our previous church buildings hundreds of years ago.
Through our values we endeavour to:
be friendly, inclusive and welcoming; celebrating human diversity in all its richness.
create space for people to ask questions and grow spiritually through openness, struggle, prayer, laughter and worship.
be a community dedicated to promoting justice, peace, and be in solidarity with those who struggle.
cherish our environment by ensuring ecological issues are an important part of our decision making.
celebrate the arts as a means of communicating beauty and the sacred.
A Prayer for the Holy Land
Broken hearted God, your ways are ways of gentleness and all your paths are peace.
Speak to the hearts of those intent on hatred and extermination.
Open the borders that aid may reach those most desperate.
Visit the hungry, thirsty, injured and terrified with the transforming grace of your Holy Spirit.
Uphold all who have experienced horror and fear worse to come.
Empower the international community that it may bring reason and understanding to all amid grief and loss.
Make of this crisis a moment of truth, that in devastation people may resolve on a different path, and in despair people may find a new hope.
Change the souls of us all that we might see through our enemy our only path to you.
In Christ who was broken that we might be made whole.
Amen.
Gaza news and truth-sourcing
IT HAS long been said that truth is the first casualty in war. In the age of digital technology, social media, AI and deep fakes, that awful reality has been turbo-charged. The continuing bombardment and assault on Gaza and the Russian invasion of Ukraine are prime examples here. Link to article
St James upholds the efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross.