Virtual Methodist

This time last night I had the pleasure of sharing a Thanksgiving Dinner with our friends from St. Luke's UMC Orlando FL... To which a friend and colleague on FB commented "You've a great life!" And I do... And I am thankful for that... And tomorrow night we will be having another celebration... this time "An Alternative Burns Night" at the Agape Centre... It's alternative in that it isn't Burns Night, its St. Andrews Night, the bookend to Burns night when not only does haggis hunting season begin, but also that series of celebrations that the Scots have cooked up to see them through the darkest months north of the border (with a little help from the Water of Life) There will be no liquor tomorrow night (it being Methodist Trust premises) but there will be music and poetry and reflections on the thinking of Burns... I've written before on the fact that we overplay some aspects of Ulster-Scots culture, but we underplay others, including ...

Well, it’s that strange phenomenon of the 29 th February once again… Our TVs and radios are filled with “human interest” stories about people with birthdays that only come round every four years, meaning that a father may have had fewer birthdays than his son, or the hoary old chestnut concerning this being the day when women can propose marriage to men. Originally it actually applied to the whole leap year, but it has wisely been restricted to the single day -   can’t have women behaving like men for a whole year! The beginnings of this has been variously attributed to   Saint Patrick   or   Brigid of Kildare   in 5th century   Ireland , although there was never any reference to this before the romanticisation of Celtic Ireland 19th century. The earliest reference is actually to a 1288 law in the name of the infant Queen   Margaret of Scotland   which imposed fines on a man if a marriage proposal was refused today, with the compensation...