Virtual Methodist

I was slightly traumatised last week when I discovered that "Now That's What I Call Music 124" has been released in the UK. I remember buying the first one as a Christmas present (on vinyl) back in 1983... So to discover there have been 123 further editions since then makes me feel very old, and prompts all kinds of whistfulness about the past. I'm from Northern Ireland, and because of the peculiarities of my accent some of my friends who do not hail from this part of the world mock my pronunciation of the word "now", in the same way that I mock my Ayrshire wife's pronunciation of the word "poem." But not only can I not pronounce the word "now" normally (according to some people), I also have difficulty in appreciating it and living in it... Not only can I get stuck in periods of nostalgic mooning over the past, I can also descend into unhelpful rumination over various regrets. Or else I can spend so much time planning for...

Not many of my pieces can be said to be 24 years in development, but I actually started this the year after the 9/11 attacks, when it was already clear that the solidarity caused by the horror of that dreadful day was dissolving and spawning potentially greater horror. I used a much earlier version in a service on an anniversary years ago, but in preceded this blog and have tinkered with it every year since. The particular milestone that 25 years throws up seemed an appropriate point to revise it again and post it, but I didn't post it on the actual day, first because I was officiating at a family funeral yesterday and couldn't face returning to the computer afterwards, and second because, like most observers of this tragedy I was not directly affected by the events of that day itself, and felt that yesterday should have been a day for the bereaved and survivors. But there is no doubt the whole world has been indirectly affected by that day. Many sensed that that wo...

Today Sally and I begin the long journey home from Pembrokeshire via her mother's in Ayr. It's been a lovely short break and a definite highlight was visiting  St David's Cathedral, both for worship and a guided tour. It's a place I have wanted to visit for a long time given my name, but never managed it until now. I know very little about Saint David/Dewi Sant, but then again, nobody does. That which we do know suggests that he is ill represented by those little embroidered  Christmas decorations that portray him in red bishop's regalia with a bushy white "Santa" beard. He was almost certainly a more modestly garbed individual, coming from the more ascetic Celtic monastic tradition, in fact I suspect that even the depicted icon recently installed on his shrine in the cathedral is too colourful.  Famously on his deathbed he is claimed to have said "Do the little things" which is sometimes expressed as "Do small, build big." ...

After a long, dry period my brain is working overtime again, some thoughts flowing from a good place, others less so. This piece is, just as it says, a product of a disturbed night's sleep, prompted by rumination over recent events and the experience of a couple of friends, both in the past and currently. But following on from some reading and writing I started during my sabbatical, I woke to read dome notes I made when reading Paula Gooder's "Journalling the Psalms", and particularly Psalms 23 and 40. There are numerous Psalms that seem to owe their origins to the times when David was unjustly on the run because of others' betrayal, either being hunted by Saul's forces, or during his son's rebellion. We don't know whether they were written by David or inspired by his story, but they have continued to speak into others' stories, including my own, right down to the present day, even though few of us (thankfully) have experienced the exis...

I haven't been writing much new material recently beyond sermons and funeral addresses given that my "free time" has been taken up by packing and unpacking boxes and assembling flat-pack furniture. I've made no secret that Sally and I were in no great hurry to move from where we were previously living, but w e all need a change of perspective from time to time and our recent re-stationing has afforded us the "opportunity" of both de-cluttering and gaining a (physically) new panoramic perspective on our home city of Belfast. This includes the smattering of wind generators on the hills on the Antrim-side of the city, which some regard as an intrusion on the rural landscape. The following piece emerged slowly over the past couple of weeks, clearly influenced by Christopher Nolan's "Odyssey". (ps. The attached photo is not of that Belfast wind farm,  but some in midwestern USA about 10 years ago. My cameraphone is too inadequate to capt...

The word that I frequently use at the conclusion of my blogs is, as most of you will already know, found repeatedly in the Psalms. Throughout my sabbatical I've been doing some reflecting on the Psalms and I am now returning, both to work, and a piece of writing, collating and revising the many responsive paraphrases of the Psalms I have done over the years, and part of that has involved thinking how to "translate" this word. Most modern translations have given up trying to translate it as its meaning is uncertain. The consensus is that it is a musical direction of some kind. Some have suggested that it is derived from a word meaning "lift up", though there is no agreement on what the reader is being encouraged to elevate! The majority opinion, however, seems to be that it is the equivalent of a musical rest, a pause for reflection, and that is the sense I have opted for, using the phrase "And breathe" (which as some 4 Corners veterans will know has a ...

Just back from a swift visit with my wife to my mother in law in Ayr. As a youngster Ayr was a frequent holiday destination, and I wasn't to know at that stage that I would end up marrying a lassie from that vicinity. On Sunday afternoon, before leaving, we took a short visit to the beach at Seafield on the southern edge of the town, which would have been a regular haunt of my wife's when growing up, but we found it much changed from previous visits... Since 2020 it has been the subject of one of the many projects around the UK seeking to re-establish sand dunes as a coastal erosion and biodiversity initiative using discarded Christmas trees as the foundational matrix for trapping the sand... A mere 6 years has made a discernible difference, and I was surprised when doing some research later that I haven't found more written about it... merely a couple of articles in local papers announcing that they were going to try this, but no "before and after" pi...

During my sabbatical I am trying to make some progress on a couple of writing projects, including a series of poems prompted by places in my home city of Belfast. Many of these focus on pieces of public art. Over the weekend, after joining the large anti-racism rally at City Hall I took a detour via one of our most recently erected, and best curated statues in a seemingly unlikely corner of the city, near the junction of Lombard Street and Rosemary Street. It portrays Frederick Douglass, the black American anti-slavery campaigner, who actually was only able to buy himself out of slavery following his speaking tour of Ireland in 1845-6. As part of that he spoke in the building now known as "First Church" in Rosemary Street, which was then a politically liberal Presbyterian Church. The sculpture was created by Alan Beattie Herriot and Hector Guest and was erected in July 2023. This piece begins with a quotation from Douglass, but whilst Saturday's anti-racism ra...

I'm in London as part of my sabbatical and found myself in a time warp last night and this morning watching the news of the riots in my home city, with a friend and colleague caught up in the midst of them, trying to make a difference. I'll leave it to others back home to comment on things on a deeper level. My prayers are with those involved in the original attack that lit the blue touch paper, and those picking up the pieces including the emergency services and those in East Belfast Mission... But this is my initial, emotional response to the whole mess with credit/apologies to Paul Brady . Four decades ago I sat in a city not my own, listening tearfully to a song that sang about the skies of Lebanon burning, with television pictures of women and children dying in the street, whilst back home we were sacrificing our own children and leaving twisted wreckage on the roads... carving tomorrow from a tombstone. Many tomorrows have come and gone, and too many tombsto...

As many of you know I'm currently on sabbatical and largely staying off social media and other sources of news, but the coverage of this week's English local elections and the Welsh and Scottish devolved assembly votes has been hard to avoid. But whilst rootling around on my blog to find material for a writing project I am working on about Christ as King and the Kingdom of God, I came across this dialogue that I posts almost exactly 10 years ago in the wake of elections that week and thinking about issues of sovereignty that were looming with the Brexit referendum the next month... how little did we realise how much the results of that would still be rumbling on after a decade!  So I thought it was worth another post, with a slight amendment... As I said then, I'm not entirely convinced by the fetishism of democracy, especially given it's tendency to be subverted by tribal interested or the undue influence of those with vast amounts of money, which has been emphasized o...

Yesterday was, as noted previously, the last of the lasts in this circuit, after spending the last 13 years back in this part of Belfast, and 8 years as Superintendent of Belfast Central Mission. Thankfully the BCM board are letting us stay in our current Manse until after I have had my sabbatical and move to my new post in July, so I won't have to spend all of my sabbatical filling boxes. But I cleared my office at BCM HQ in Grosvenor House on Thursday and posted the attached photo on social media. This is the first of two pieces prompted by the photo (I haven't finished the other one yet). Throughout my time in BCM when at that desk I have been very aware of the pictures of the 11 previous Superintendents looking down on me... wondering whether they would approve of what I was doing or where things were at. The space left for me as the 12th Superintendent in that seat always had a certain inauspicious sense of "completeness" to it, although I genuinely h...

As promised today I will be preaching in Donegall Road Methodist for the last time in my current role, and will be focusing on today' lectionary reading from John 20 and the story of the much maligned "Doubting Thomas" and Caravaggio's treatment of the story. I won't be using the following monologue that I wrote a few years ago when looking at this story elsewhere, but I was surprised to find that I hadn't previously posted it here. So here it is... It picks up some of what I am saying today but also builds on my assertion last week that the greatest proof 9f the "resurrection" is not some finely reasoned argument in a sermon, but radically changed, hope-filled lives, be they Mary, Thomas, you or me.. I wasn’t there… I just needed time to myself. I couldn’t face being cooped up in a room with the rest of then after the women had come back that morning babbling about the tomb being empty… None of us believed them, and I just had to put so...

And so, after a series of "Lasts", some formal and some more informal, I am coming, at last, to the last of the lasts... At least in my current role. On Sunday 12th April at 11.30am the only service on the Belfast Central and South Circuit will be taking place in Donegall Road Methodist Church with the Circuit Superintendent Robin Waugh leading and me preaching for one last time... Everyone is welcome... those from elsewhere on the circuit... friends from other churches (admit it you often mitch off your home church on this "Low Sunday" anyway)... family... passing acquaintances... There will be refreshments beforehand from 10.45am. As a bit of a spoiler, I will be referring to the attached piece of art in the sermon (which isn't written yet, but there is plenty of time). It "The Incredulity of St. Thomas" by Caravaggio and it is usually to be found in the Bildergalerie of the Sans Souci Palace, in Potsdam, Germany, but I saw it "in the flesh...

Many years ago when I was only a first year ministerial student, the minister I was serving with assigned me the challenge of preaching on the phrase "he descended into hell" from the (old style) Apostles Creed, at our Good Friday service, as part of a series we were doing on the creed at the time. It took me down a whole rabbit hole looking at medieval theories of the "harrowing of hell" which has stuck with me down through the years because of their poetic power. And  there is also a part of me that finds it hard to shake off the medieval imagery of hell that you find in the attached picture of  "Christ's Descent into Hell" by a follower  of Hieronymus Bosch (mid 16th cent.)  from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY.   However,  when I look back at the text of that sermon (yes... I've surprisingly still got it though, for good reason I have never preached it again) I didn't major on that idea. That's because the original Greek text of the ...

As part of out circuit Holy week events this year on Wednesday evening we hosted "Play It By Ear", otherwise known as Chris Neilands and Ross Jonas who are funded by the Methodist Church in Ireland to use drama to explore faith issues. They performed their latest piece "The Chair, the Table and the Cross" which looked at the events of Holy Week from the perspective of a Jerusalem carpenter's workshop. It was an all age piece, so it didn't go too dark or deep, but thinking about it later took me back to a a couple of things. The first was the attached oil painting, "The Shadow of Death" by William Holman Hunt, this version being his earlier, darker one painted between 1879 and 1883,  in the Manchester City Art Gallery. And the second is a scene I posted here before, way back in 2008 in the wake of watching an episode of "The Passion" produced by the BBC that year (I've still not seen the whole thing).  My thoughts then took...

Today was another "last" with my friends and colleagues at BCM HQ (including some of the Puddleducks team included in this picture) hosting a farewell coffee morning. Unlike most of the other events I prepared my reply to the nice things said about me, including this concluding Benediction, taken, in part, fron a longer series of beatitudes in my recently published book of poems " Hedge Songs ." Blessed are you who are burned-out and  overworked, picking up the pieces of broken lives in a broken world, because you will know the breath of God filling your lungs and spirits. Happy are you who say “Stop! This is not right!” in the face of impossible odds, because God’s got your back. Blessed are you who are changemakers rather than just reacting to change, because change is the crack in the universe through which God pours in opportunity. Happy are you who weep now at partings, but refocus on the future, because the same God who blessed you in the pas...

I'm coming to the end of my period as Superintendent of Belfast Central Mission and before I take up my new appointment in July I am taking a 3 month sabbatical during which I have a number of writing projects I want to complete. During a previous sabbatical I had been to write and direct a community Passion play for our sister mission in East Belfast at the Skainos centre, but due to the ongoing flag protests and other reasons at that time the wheels came off that project. Instead they scaled things down and staged 3 of the monologues from the play as a devotional event on Maundy Thursday at East Belfast Mission. The first of those offered the perspective of a Roman centurion watching the events of Palm Sunday, and it was performed by Jim Allen. I've subsequently used it in the Agape Centre and as part of a Palm Sunday broadcast. I was back over at Skainos this week for an event challenging us to revisit the work of reconciliation in this part of the world, and thi...

There are times when I am jolted out of times of worship by a phrase or image that strikes me in an unexpected way, and whilst I may return to worship after a moment or two, the jarring image can stay with me. Be it the more poetic metaphors of traditional hymns or some of the Biblical language and images lifted in a cut and paste fashion in many contemporary praise songs there is often a niggle akin to Inigo Montoya's oft repeated line from "The Princess Bride" - 'I do not think it means what you think it means...' This happened to me yesterday with the phrase "Let your fire fall down." We obviously tend to think of this in Pentecostal terms, but rarely do we think of the revolutionary long term implications of that first Pentecost after the resurrection. But I've also been feeling a bit burned-out myself in recent months, and am hearing the voice of my wise friend Derrick Poole reminding me that "God wants us to be living sacrifice...

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...