Virtual Methodist

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men Gang aft agley..." So wrote Rabbie Burns in his poem "To a mouse", and among the best laid plans that have gone agley for this man this week has been any attempt to celebrate Rabbie's "immortal memory" with a some haggis, neeps and tatties... A combination of pastoral issues, health problems, computer glitches and other things have derailed a number of things that I had planned and put me under more pressure than usual... And that is without taking into account the hectic whirlwind of events associated with the 4 Corners Festival that are about to start tonight with the opening of Bronagh Lawson's "20 artists: Religion and Spirituality" at the Duncairn Arts Centre. Do check out the festival programme, as there is plenty there to interest people from all sorts of perspectives... Tomorrow night I am helping to re-stage Wendy Johnston's wonderful "Night with Messy Women" which...

Today, Monday 17th November, the final piece of legislation allowing women to be appointed as bishops is due to make its way through the General Synod of the Church of England. I generally don't comment on the goings on in sister denominations unless something so outrageous happens that I drop my guard and have pressed the "publish" button before engaging the "grace" circuit in my brain... So I am not going to make any comment except those that might be inferred in the light of the superb event in the Agape Centre on Friday past, entitled A Night with Messy Women . In this Wendy Johnston recited from memory the family tree of Jesus in Matthew chapter one, before going on to recite the stories of the 5 women cited in that story... all of whom, in the eyes of established Jewish social and religious circles would have been even further down the social scale than "normal" Jewish women... either because of dubious sexual morals (ignoring the dubious sexual...