Virtual Methodist

Ooops... This is actually last week's Thought for the Day on Radio Ulster. I only discovered that I hadn't pressed the "Publish" button when I went in to upload this week's offering... I suspect that the few readers that this blog has will not have been waiting with bated breath for it, but I thought I would still publish it for the sake of completeness... If you are interested in hearing my dulcet tones, the broadcast versions are still available at the time of publication  here at 25 and 86 minutes in. The news cycle has moved on, but the issues I touch on are sadly timeless...  I will publish today's "thought" tomorrow... If I remember... I don’t often pay much attention to speeches at Annual political and union conferences… They are usually, to use an ecclesiastical metaphor, an exercise in preaching to the choir… nor, if truth be told do I often pay much attention to the public pronouncements of Bishops or Archbishops, with the possible exc...

I'm in London today. I was actually supposed to be here this time last week, but put it off due to a friend's wedding that sadly turned into a funeral... As a result I missed being in London for another funeral... that of Margaret Thatcher.  I largely avoided facebook and news/current affairs shows between her death and funeral mostly because I was surprised at how much her demise raised old emotions in me, and I really did not want to get sucked into the "ding-dong" response to the death of  a confused old lady. I've actually spent a fair part of the past fortnight trying to process the effect that she had on my political awareness and orientation, never mind the wider question of what she, her -ism and acolytes did for/to the country, indeed are still doing... It is complex. And part of that is that she herself was not solely responsible for anything... either in terms of me or the nation... but she was a lightning rod for it all...  Others have offered anal...

Now those who know me, either in the real or the virtual world, will probably have guessed by now that I am a constant advocate for Christian social engagement and social justice, and one of the Biblical passages that I often refer people to is Matthew 25: 31-46 ; what some people refer to as the parable of the "Sheep and the Goats", but is actually a reference to some future time of judgement when Christ will divide the nations as if dividing "sheep and goats." However, after reading the exegesis offered by "Chaplain Mike" over on iMonk today, I'm not so sure that I will use this passage to the same ends again. He argues that "the least of these brothers of mine" is actually a reference to the church and that this is a parable concerning the judgment of the nations in relation to how they responded to the message and needs of the church. Given the likely context of Matthew's Gospel, which, many suggest was written to a Jewish Christian g...

Back in the Ulster Hospital yesterday in my role as Chaplain there, and it made me think again about the "good old" NHS that has been recently so badly maligned by US right-wing reactionaries and renegade Tories. Now, as both an employee and a frequent user (both on my own behalf as a Type-2 diabetic, and the parent of a particularly accident-prone child) of the National Health Service, I am more than aware of its short-comings. But I am also personally thankful for and a constant observer of its strengths, and have been getting mightily ticked off by repeated ill-informed criticism from the other side of the Atlantic. At various times I have also had the opportunity to get a close up look at some of the health provision in different parts of the USA, and there is no doubt that at its best, the provision there IS the best in the world. But after all it IS the richest country in the world (at least for the moment) and yet, despite that, there are an inordinate number of people...

This is not a story to read immediately after your breakfast, but apparently a Serbian union official has cut off his little finger and eaten it , in protest at unpaid wages. Zoran Bulatovic used a hacksaw to cut his finger off and said "it hurt like hell". Surprising that! The prophets in the Old Testament realised that words were not enough at times, and did some dramatic things to make a point... Isaiah walked around naked for 3 years while Ezekiel lay on his left side for over a year before turning over onto the other side for a further 40 days, and Ahijah tore his coat into twelve pieces, giving 10 to Jeroboam. But this is something that may even have given the most fervent Old Testament prophet pause before doing it. Apparently some workers at the Raska Holding textile factory in Novi Pazar haven't been paid for years, and currently have nothing to eat, so he ate his finger to make an example. His colleagues threatened to follow suit, one at a time, but further au...

A few weeks ago I went to Old Trafford to watch the Scum (sorry, Manchester Utd) annihilate Middlesborough. The football played by Ronaldo, Tevez, Nani and Shrek etc was (and this is difficult for a Liverpool fan to admit) awesome, but the atmosphere around the so-called "Theatre of Dreams" was curiously flat. The banter for which British football crowds are rightly famous was muted, and there were only 3 chants of real note. The first related to Solskjaer, a player who has retired (maybe the Man. Utd fans are so slow-witted they haven't noticed that yet!). The second was an affectionate tribute Nemanja Vidic, their Serbian defender suggesting that being from Serbia he's likely to "f*****g murder ya!" The final one was directed at the small knot of Middlesborough fans in the corner of the ground below where I was sitting. In it the Man. Utd fans suggested that their opponents were from "the worst place in Britain." Now I wouldn't have expected...