Virtual Methodist

A monologue based on the experience of Sarah in the Old Testament, originally written by me for a service my wife was taking at a local congregation back in 2009. It came back to mind because she is against leading a service in a local congregation, preaching on the call of Abram, and because the person who originally delivered it died recently. So here it is again in slightly modified form. I suppose it is also appropriate given that today is International Women's Day. There was also a strand within it prompted by an earlier  reflect ion that we have a tendency to write off people once they come to a certain age or stage of illness. Indeed how often do we write ourselves off? Laughter and tears… Laughter and tears have marked my life, especially my later years… I could have cried when Abraham, or Abram as he was known as then, said that God had told him to leave his father’s house in Haran and set off for who knows where… We were both already well on in years… It ...

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 ...