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Are our revels about to end?

On Valentine's Day my wonderful wife gave me a card. This was unusual. Not just because we don't usually do Valentine's Day stuff, but because in it was the promise of an overnight in Stratford on Avon to see the RSC production of the Tempest which ends tonight. She had conspired with my PA to reschedule my meetings and spirit me away for 36 hours on Thursday and Friday of this week as a wee pick-me-up. We usually head off for a day or two at least the week after the 4 Corners Festival, but that wasn't possible this year because I had some work meetings and deadlines that week, and Sally had to go visit her mum in Scotland. So this little sojourn was very welcome. Doubly so because it was a surprise. Trebly so because The Tempest was the first Shakespeare play I ever performed in, nearly 43 years ago, and so it holds a special place in my heart, despite being one of the Bard's less accessible pieces. I deliberately didn't read any of the reviews of the show once

Kenosis

At the beginning of each year we Wesleyans (and a few others who have stolen the discipline from us as John Wesley stole it from Richard Alleyn and others), share in a so-called "Covenant Service", rededication ourselves to God and "wholehearted discipleship" as this year's Methodist Church in Ireland theme puts it. It cumulates in the wonderfully poetic, but eye-poppingly demanding "Covenant Prayer". If you don't know it go look it up and ask yourself whether you would really want God to answer parts of that prayer? As we enter into Lent I've been reflecting on that and some recent experiences, particularly where the Spirit leads Jesus from the exalted affirmation of baptism, into the empty wastes of the wilderness. Why pray such a foolish thing? Let me be full – yes please Employed, exalted, energised! But let me be empty, Drained, dried-up, done, Fit only for appropriate disposal, Discarded, disregarded? Yet, before that first cr

Out for a Walk, but I'm not on my Own

Some people look to different films, plays or TV programmes for "comfort viewing" or "insights onto the human condition." I, and all right thinking English-speaking people turn to "The West Wing", that peerless political fantasy created by Aaron Sorkin. I've probably watched it 9-10 times, although I haven't gone near it since the end of lockdown. But over the Iwerkend I found myself thinking about a line from the superb "Shutdown" episode, which, appropriately enough given the state of the Northern Ireland Assembly at present, portrays a stand-off between the President and the Speaker of the House that results in a complete government shutdown. In the middle of all this the folksy Vice President Bob Russell says cynically about the President's strategy: "You know what they call a leader with no followers? Just a guy taking a walk." As is often the case with Sorkin's best lines, this dictum had been circulati

The Grief of Dreams Unrealised - and Dreams of Griefs Unaddressed

"Where two or three are gathered together there is always one with a broken heart." So said Joseph Parker, a former 19th century minister in London's City Temple. I read that quotation in the little book by one of my late Methodist heroes, Sydney Callaghan "Good Grief." It was first published in 1990 just before I started training for ministry, during which time Sydney was one of my tutors. My own copy of the book, dog-eared though it was, went walkabout when I lent it to someone, and I was delighted when Sydney's widow gave me a copy of the 1999 revised edition by local publisher Colourpoint a few years back. For various reasons I am re-reading it at present, and it is interesting to note some of the changes in social mores and conventions that form the backdrop to any attempt to wrestle with grief, not least that people in Northern Ireland today are a lot more willing to talk about their grief than they were when Sydney was first writing, and e

Not a Christmas Carol

The 4 Corners Festival 2023 started in earnest yesterday with its theme of "Dreams: Visions for Belfast" with a nod both to Martin Luther King Jnr's "I have a dream" speech 60 uears ago this year and the hopes and dreams wrapped up on the Good Friday Agreement 25 years ago, as well as the many Biblical dreamers alluded to by Julieann Moran in Skainos last night. But throughout the festival this year we are also staging a photographic exhibition at Artcetera Studios in Rosemary Street, looking at the issue of homelessness. As exhibition coordinator Cormac McArt says "No-one dreams of being homeless" and yet it is a problem that affects people from all backgrounds and all 4 corners of our city and beyond, both in terms of the insidious hidden homelessness that is increasingly affecting families and children, and the more obvious street sleeping, with people literally dying on our streets at a rate akin to those dying due to our "Troubles." Over

Daily Rituals

OK. Normal service has been restored. Putting prose on the back-burner for a day or two. Today's piece is actually a product of a session I led with our current cohort of ministerial students looking at written and unwritten liturgies, and how we use different physical spaces in worship. But as I prepared I reflected on what reflects and shapes our priorities in the everyday. Some contemplative Christian traditions and other faiths are much more conscious of this (and groups like 24/7 Prayer have made some from an evangelical tradition more aware), but everyone, including those of "no faith" have habits and rituals that mark out our days, weeks and years. Indeed "Daily Rituals" has become a minor growth industry in the secular lifestyle gurus/self-help sector over recent years, and I suspect that for some of us who claim to be Christian those habits and rituals are more secular than sacred in origin. But even where they are "religious" the