Virtual Methodist

Last night something happened to me that, thankfully, rarely does... After a couple of hours of fitful sleep I woke up around 3 am and could not get back to sleep. As a rule I don't get a lot of sleep, but that is usually due to working into the wee small hours and then the rest of the world expecting me to function within the usual hours of 9-5. But normally when my head hits the pillow I sleep the sleep of, if not the just, then the sleep of the just exhausted... I don't know what caused last night's anomally... whether it is a side effect of the flu jab I had a few days ago, another bug at work on me, or some sub-conscious anxiety (although the last is very unlikely as most of my anxieties are very conscious...) But no matter what I did I couldn't get back to sleep for ages... the time dragged and my mind was filled with all the things that I really didn't want to think about in the middle of the night... various pieces of work I've got to do... pastoral issu...

A couple of days ago, Terry Wogan, in the midst of his early morning witterings, played Robbie William's latest ditty, "Bodies", asking after it had finished "has Robbie got religion?" A few moments before, Owain, my teenage son, had asked a another question: "What on earth is he on about?" I'm not sure about the answer to either question... Even less so after looking at the lyrics below for longer than I should have... The words are all there: God, Jesus, died for me, save me, perfection, rapture... Assembled in a different order they would be perfectly at home in a revivalist tent-meeting... (Although the reference to a Bodhi Tree clearly owes more to Eastern religion/new-age pick and mix spirituality) But what's all this stuff about looking good naked? That certainly owes more to Gok Wan than the gospel, although it may be an easy summation of what the gospel is up against in modern western culture. If the big questions that others are askin...