Virtual Methodist

Following my post yesterday I had a number of colleagues and friends contact me to see if I was OK... It was very welcome, and I was able to say that I was, indeed, the fact that I felt able to post what I did spoke of me feeling somewhat less vulnerable than I have done at times over recent years... I also have had a number of people contact me expressing similar feelings, be it the experience of feeling somewhat redundant or overlooked within the church, particularly those with interests and abilities in some aspects of the arts, but also those who for various reasons feel dislocated from the body... and indeed on the verge of complete amputation. To prevent these things can I suggest a number of self-care strategies - sadly you may have to initiate them yourself as, my experience tells me, that the institution that goes by the name church will rarely seek out those who are feeling at odds with it...  Identify ways to exercise your particular skills and interests even i...

“Even the rectum is part of the body…” In an exercise early on in the 2013 conference of the Methodist  Church in Ireland , we were looking at Paul’s image of the body of Christ, and I scribbled the statement above on the front of the notebook we had kindly been given to record our thoughts. It clearly was a redacted form of what I actually thought, but that is what I wrote down… A colleague sitting behind me later said, “Forgive me looking over your shoulder, but I saw what you wrote, and I laughed because I know what you mean…” I was glad he wasn’t shocked or appalled, but actually, I suspect he didn’t actually know what I meant… Because I wasn’t actually referring to anyone else as a “rectum” but reflecting on how I felt about my own place in the body of Christ and particularly the Methodist  Church in Ireland … Frankly, there are times when I feel that I am one of those bits of the body to be treated with “special modesty” as the NIV puts it… Out of sight, out...

Have you ever heard of Ruth and Verena Cady? I hadn't until I read a reference to them in a Max Lucado book , and then followed up with some judicious Googling ... For those who haven't read about them previously, they were twins, born in 1984… and like many sisters and particularly twins, they shared everything… they shared the same womb before they were born and the same room afterwards… they even shared the same bed every night… they shared the same toys… even sharing one trike between them… But it went further than with most sisters or even twins, because Ruthie and Verena’s bodies were fused together from their sternum to the waist… Though they had different brains and nervous systems and distinctive personalities they were sustained by a single, three-chambered heart and the food that came from a single intestine… They were literally inseparable because one could not survive without the other… and if truth be told when they were born the doctors didn’t think they would su...