Virtual Methodist

Last night I had another in a long line of "lasts." This was my last formal meeting with our Circuit Good Book Group, which I first established on being stationed to Belfast South Methodist 13 years ago. I haven't counted them but I reckon we have read and discussed over 60 books in that period and I trust it will continue to explore many more in the years to come (starting with " The Middle Eastern Jesus: The Christ of the Gospel and the Culture of God " on Thursday 28th May, at 7pm in the Agape Centre). But the last book we read together (and which after 13 years is the first one I haven't finished - not for negative reasons but because I want to give it the time it deserves) is " The Missing Peace " by Chris Whittington, which is an introduction to contemplative practice. During the discussion I mentioned the fact that, as I have said on this blog before, I have a difficulty in "switching off" which means that contemplative...

I was delighted to see that around three years after their removal from the former Ulster Bank building at  Shaftesbury Square, Belfast,  Elisabeth Frink's iconic statues have found a new home on the outside of the Ulster Museum extension in Botanic Park. Just a pity they hadn't appeared a couple of weeks ago or they would undoubtedly have featured in the treasure hunt I devised for my wife Sally's significant birthday... I previously wrote a piece about their unannounced removal , but given that I am currently planning to compile another collection of my scribblings during my upcoming sabbatical, this one a series of pieces with a specific sense of place here in Belfast, I thought I should revise both the poem and attendant blog to take account of their reappearance. As I previously wrote,  Elisabeth Frink  (1930-1993), a Sussex born artist was commissioned in 1961 by the Lurgan architects Houston & Beaumont and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to create a s...

My wife Sally always wanted a magnolia tree in the garden. When I was appointed Superintendent of Belfast Central Mission and we moved into the manse on the Malone Road she at last got her wish and in spring it is a joy to look out on it each morning as it is coming into bud and finally full bloom, until the inevitable fall of the blooms with their sticky petals. She also recently came across a letter she had written one springtime to her mum talking about "feeling her sap rising" with t he change of seasons, a phenomenon she experiences and notes every year. But this year both in terms of weather and emotions, spring feels more like autumn, as we prepare to move again. In many ways I had hoped that my appointment here would see me through to retirement. But, for various reasons, it was not to be, and I go where I am sent... So I find myself in a season of "lasts" - last board meeting, last church council, last school assembly, and many more to come this...

A piece that I started in Rome after our walk, through the rain along the Appian Way (because we got off at the wrong bus stop) to visit the catacombs of St. Sebastian. I didn't get a chance to return to it afterwards in the busyness since then, until Steve Stockman asked me to contribute a couple of poems at an event on Sunday evening to give thanks to our 4 Corners volunteers and to reflect on our pre-festival Rime trip. I shared "In the Room" and "Brothers Embrace" which had been prompted by our different aspects of our trip, and which I have previously posted here. But I thought I would take anither run at this piece in the light of our festival theme if "Journey" and subsequent world affairs. So here it is There's a widely held belief  that all those roads that they say  lead to Rome, are always straight, driven right through or over every  obstacle, in order that  the armies of the empire  might not be impeded as  they went about ...

This needs no explanation, apart from to say for those less familiar with the New Testament, that in his letter to the Church in Phillippi, written from prison, Paul of Tarsus offers a different perspective (Phillippians 4: 8-9). But sometimes prisons aren't physical and we aren't always saintly. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is fake, whatever is dishonourable, whatever is twisted, whatever is toxic, whatever is hateful, whatever is shameful, if anything is deficient or deserving condemnation – focus on such things. Do what I clearly do rather than what I say. Let me be your model, and the devil will have a field day filling your heart and mind with bile that will overflow wherever you go. Selah

I have a memory that is well-fitted for table quizzes; a bizarre association of trivialities, dates, names, places that I can rummage through to find the answer or offer someone else enough information that they can fill in the blanks. I’m not good at remembering important details like real people’s names, birthdays etc out of the immediate context, and have never been one to quote at will pieces of text, be that Bible verses, poems learnt at school or even dialogue from parts that I played on stage in the past; once the curtain came down my brain seems to delete such information, or rather put it in an archive not easily accessible except on the rare occasion that I have returned to the part again. I can’t even easily retain pieces of poetry, or prose that I have written myself beyond the context for which I wrote it. So this week I found myself in a group where we were alluding to the image of “the mills of God grinding slowly but exceeding fine” in the hope of ultimate ...