Virtual Methodist

It has been a real joy to share their national day with American friends on many occasions and indeed actually to be in America for the 4th of July on a number of occasions, including last year when I had a fairly unusual celebration in Holden Village, Washington, including a discussion panel with some really great guys exploring the nature of nationalism and patriotism... This year I am watching that great nation from afar, tearing itself apart over its vision of itself and the world around it, and into the mix I offer this short reflection. Not independence, But interdependence. Not individuality,  But community.  Not commerce,  But the common good.  Not consumption,  But conservation.  Not selfishness,  But stewardship.  Not the economy (stupid)  But ecology.  Not US and THEM , Just US. Justice For all. God bless America,  And everyone else too. Shalom

Earlier in the summer on the 4th July we had an Independence Day party. I went dressed as a Native American, and when challenged by an American friend as to what that had to do with American Independence, I said that I was representing the first nations of America. I suppose, on reflection I could have claimed that I was dressed as a participant in the Boston Tea Party, one of the mythic events that primed the pump for revolution... yet one which is badly misunderstood by the vast majority of Americans, and misappropriated by Sarah Palin and her posse of right wing nihilists (or theocrats depending on how you read it ). It was priceless recently seeing her display her complete ignorance of that other iconic revolutionary event, the midnight ride of Paul Revere , and her acolytes' cack-handed attempts to change history, or at least what passes for history on Wikipedia . However, as Bernard Cornwell points out in his (as always) scrupulous historical notes at the end of his most ...

Today we're hosting a party at our house for something between 30-55 people (depending on who turns up and when). It is ostensibly to celebrate American Independence Day and to say thanks to Hannah Williams our Young Adult Volunteer from the PCUSA, who has been with us at Dundonald for the past year. We had a great time in Michigan for Independence Day last year, but I continue to have difficulty with any heavily patriotic festival (believing with Samuel Johnston that far too often "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel") and nationalistic flag-waving of any flavour. And whilst I can understand the reasons that the USA might want to celebrate their independence from British colonialism (even though the founder of Methodism, John Wesley would not have agreed), the myth of "independence" has seeped deep into the American psyche and mutated into a stubborn individualism, which, over the past century they have, in turn exported to the rest of the world, in th...

David Campton has invited me to reflect on some of the similarities and contrasts between our American July 4 Independence Day observance and the Northern Irish July 11/12 Orange holidays. This has been a difficult task, because while I have some understanding of the American holiday, there are historical complexities and cultural subtleties that lurk beneath the surface of the Northern Irish observances. It’s tempting to sound like an “instant expert” and draw conclusions and make judgements that are both naïve and inappropriate. Having said that, here are some of my impressions. Our first taste of the “marching season” observances came on July 1, referred to as “the mini-Twelfth.” This is the anniversary of the Battle of the Somme in 1916, during the First World War, where the Ulster Regiment suffered significant casualties. The one-hour parade of flute-and-drum bands, accordion bands, a few floats, and hundreds of marching Orange Lodge members, was a prelude to the parade we watched...

Coming as I do from a place where bangs and flashes were all too recently a sign, not of celebration, but of conflict and destruction, I love a good firework display. And our 4th July came to an end with a particulalry good one put on by the City Council of Grandville. We decided not to brave the main event in Grand Rapids City Centre (funded in part by Floyd Mayweather as part of his retirement event... or should that be, funded by Ricky Hatton who was beaten by Mayweather last year!) but to go back to the scene of the morning's parade. I dread to think how much money literally went up in smoke last night, not just in the official events, but also in the impromptu backyard shows going on all around us... Sometimes a little too close for comfort... But last night was not a night for thinking about the cost of it all... It was a night for sitting back in a lawnchair in the middle of a highschool baseball field and enjoying the view. Mind you, when I thought back on earlier in the we...

I suppose our 4th July holiday began, not with the A10 Thunderbolts that I mentioned last post, but with the uniquely American phenomenon of a kids Baseball game at Grandville, a small suburb of Grand Rapids, on Thursday night, accompanied by a devoted mom of one of the players, Jeanette Kaufman, who became our "4th July Guide". We then arranged to meet up the next morning for the parade. Now as someone used to July parades in Belfast of an orange hue, this was an entirely different experience. Starting with the A10 Thunderbolts, and finishing with the fact that when the parade had passed and the crowds went to disperse there was no sea of litter... and especially no cans and bottles of beer left lying in the gutter. Indeed the almost total absence of alcohol around those watching the parade, marked it out as the truly family occasion that it was... that and the constant showers of "candy" that the participants in the parade shared with the watching children... My o...

To quote the immortal Freddie Mercury "Thunderbolts and Lightning, very, very frightening, me..." Well, if not me, my wife and second son, who spent at least 3 hours in the basement of the parsonage during what we have been told was the biggest electrical storm here in Grand Rapids for decades. It raged from 3pm until after 11pm, and resulted in many downed trees, flooded roads and disruption of telephone and electrical connections. Our internet connection at the parsonage has been down since Thursday morning, probably due to the storm, so that is why there have been no posts over the past few days... But it is amazing that here we are in the most powerful nation this world has ever seen, with all kinds of technology at our disposal (including doppler radar pictures to tell exactly where the storm was headed) and we are reduced to the role of helpless spectators by a mid-summer storm. In the ancient world the thunder, lightning and hail we witnessed on Wednesday were taken a ...