Virtual Methodist

I’ve been posting pieces of art on Facebook and Twitter based on some aspect of the Daily Lectionary readings since the beginning of Lent, an exercise I also engaged in from the beginning of Advent until Epiphany… I’ll probably continue this until Trinity Sunday and then clock off… My process, as I outlined to someone a few weeks ago is that I do a lectio of the readings, with a key question guiding my second reading of the text being “what image comes out most strongly to you in these texts.” I then try to put that image into a few simple words. I then type them into Dr. Google (other search engines are available) and see what images are thrown up and whether any of them chime with the image that leapt out at me from the text. I rarely go down the purely illustrative route. I want images that make me (and others) rethink the text. But today was the first day I ran into a brick wall. I wasn’t too sure whether it was because I have run into a brinck wall myself with this whole covid-1...

Today in the Daily Lectionary my mate Jonah made another appearance and so as my #EasterArt post I shared this illustration from the Cervera Bible, a late 13th century Hebrew folio in the Lisbon Museum, illuminated by Joseph the Frenchman. I love the image, and I love the fact that the artist, who was working in Spain at the time was simply known as “Joseph the Frenchman.”  In 2019 as part of my Sabbatical I headed off Holden Village, a Lutheran Retreat Centre in of the north Cascade Mountains in Washington State, USA, where I could easily have been referred to as David the Irishman because (for that week at least) I was in a minority of 1. I Had the honour of being invited to lecture there, and indeed, was supposed to be returning to share a second set of lectures this coming summer but Covid-19 has put paid to that. The subject of last year’s lectures was the book of Jonah, a book which I have been fascinated with for years, and I incorporated in the lectures the series o...

Today's #EasterArt image was chosen by Jenny Meegan, one of our Lay Preachers on the South and Central Belfast Methodist Circuit. It is a decorated initial, from a fifteenth-century Italian  Latin choir book , in the Free Library of Philadelphia, which features an image of the conversion of St Paul. In the New Testament we have an edited selection of Paul's Letters, including the First Letter to the Corinthians, from which one of today's lectionary readings is taken. Indeed back in my college days I took a course on the so-called Corinthian Correspondence, overseen by one of my predecessors as Superintendent of BCM. One of the frustrations in that correspondence is that we only have the letters from "one side", but the following is a letter to Paul from Jenny Meegan: Dear Paul,  I was surprised when David told me our reading for today was from your first letter to the Corinthians. I hadn’t expected to find you at the end of the first week of Easter! I ...

As I said yesterday in my blog the post Holy Week slump has set in, so I am downing electronic tools for a few days to recharge my batteries and any evening devotionals that appear on the Circuit Facebook page will be down to colleagues and lay preachers who have volunteered to take over for a bit, with the occasional piece appearing as a guest post here on Virtual Methodist. I've always felt bad about the downing tools immediately after Easter phenomenon. I agree with N.T. Wright that in an ideal world Easter should be a longer celebration than Holy Week as we are suposed to be resurrection people. But this is not an ideal world, even less so than normal at the moment, and I need a rest. But I was delighted when I got today's guest post from the most recent member to join the circuit team. Lynn McFarland, the Lay Minister based primarily in Sandy Row Methodist. The image (which I happily posted as the second #EasterArt post this morning) and the blog reflect the sense of j...