Virtual Methodist

We've just come to the end of the 2025 Annual Conference of the Methodist Church in Ireland. It's been a short but busy agenda, not leaving too much room for blogging... But as our former President Rev Dr John Alderdice reflected on his year in office at the opening Ministerial Session, he pointed us again to his installation service the previous year and the image of a cracked, clay jar allowing the light to get in (as per Leonard Cohen and, long before him, Rumi) but also out... but also that of Paul's unknown "thorn in the flesh" revealing the surpassing grace of God...  And from those thoughts came this... Grace comes in the form of a thorn that can never be extracted but gets down deep beneath the skin and cosmetic surface shallowness, working its way into the heart, and probing at raw nerves en route. Grace is conveyed in cracked vessels, free flowing through jagged fissures. Only broken bread can be shared. Only a broken heart can heal. Only when we see we...

News of Pope Francis’ death broke just as I was about to go into a series of workshops I was taking part in in Derry/Londonderry yesterday as part of the Passion+ fringe festival to the Walled City Passion. At the beginning of each of those workshops there was a brief period of silence. And it struck me that silence was probably the best response. The only verbal response to the death of Christ was a short statement by a Roman officer, which in many ways was the culmination of this year’s Walled City Passion narrative, yet was variously reported in the gospels, perhaps depending on their audience. By contrast the internet and traditional media was filled with responses to Pope Francis’ demise, some carefully crafted for their intended audiences. Some vox pops offering people little time to reflect. Most respectful, even where their religious perspective or general worldview would have been widely different from that of the deceased. But a few that I saw were, frankly, appalling...

I started to write this last Sunday, inspired (yet again) by Malcolm Guite's own poem and reflection for Palm Sunday in "The Word in the Wilderness" focusing on "the inner Jerusalem." But I have been unable to finish and post it over the past few days because, as is often the case, I have been far too busy in a way that belies the description of this week as "Holy." But now I get a chance to look at it, it seems an appropriate piece to post on Holy Saturday with its sense of incompleteness. The pilgrim songs have long faded away, The palm leaves and discarded cloaks, Have been swept to the verges of the road, Whilst the borrowed Jenny and her colt, Have long been returned to the village From whence they came. But have the gates of the city been opened To warmly receive the blessed one? Or are they barred by indifference, Having seen this scene so many times? Or by antipathy, knowing the upset that he will bring? O for that shining new Jeru...

In my preparations for a recent sermon on  the anointing of Jesus by Mary at Bethany referred to yesterday, I remembered this piece, which in much older than yesterday's monnologue. I originally posted it in 2008, but I actually wrote it in 1999, as part of a production entitled "Testaments" staged in the grounds of Queens University, Belfast in 1999 - more than a quarter of a century ago - Terrifying! But it is even older than that, and not entirely my own work, being a reworking of a soliloquy by Judas in different versions of medieval mystery/Passion plays, with phrases and entire lines lifted from Tony Harrison's famous adaptation of the York, Wakefield, Chester and Coventry Mysteries staged by the National Theatre in the early 1980s. In it Judas comes across as a bit of a panto villain, but the self-justification and self-pity, with little sense of empathy is something that resonates with me when I look at some public figures at present. It begins wit...

In our Holy Week Services in Donegall Road, Belfast South and Grosvenor Road this week we will be focusing our thoughts using adaptations of Paula Gooder's book,  "The Women of Holy Week," which are once again being posted as daily podcasts, and which I highly recommend. Thanks to Mylie Brennan for her rehearsed reading of Paula's take on Palm Sunday through the eyes of a Galilean woman called Miriam yesterday. We won't be including Paula's version of today's Gospel reading in the lectionary, John 12:1-11 , which brings Mary of Bethany back into the picture after the healing of her brother Lazarus, but I thought I would reblog my version, which has received multiple outings and previous blog posts.  The image that I have included this time is  "The Anointing of Christ" by Bulgarian artist Julia Stankova (2009), the picture I posted earlier today as part of my #LentArt challenge. I've said before that there are times when I find so...

This is a piece, less influenced by my reading of Malcolm Guite's Lent devotional, as a midweek conversation challenging my wishy-washy liberal take on current world affairs. I was also challenged this week by someone who questioned me bringing contemporary politics into, not only my poetry, but, God forbid, into my preaching. My response was to point to Palm Sunday and ask whether the account we have of the events of that day were not riddled with politics? Anyway... here's a politically flavoured poem for Palm Sunday before we go and wave our nice neat Palm Crosses (hopefully not produced in some developing world sweat shop) in our services this morning... (ps. The image chosen is Stanley Spencer's "Christ Overturning the Money Changers’ Table" (1921) in the Stanley Spencer Gallery, Cookham, England. Overturning the tables, temporarily, In our contemporary temple courts Sending stock and money tumbling And priests of mammon scurrying, To make sure that the pious...