Virtual Methodist

And finally, when you thought it was never going to end, here's my little personal postscript to our Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, partly inspired by those practical deists who will die in a ditch over a literal belief in a 6 day creation but don't give a thought to the ongoing stewardship of this wonderful but wounded world... (There is also a line that owes more than a little to the late great Humphrey Lyttleton on "I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue", which speaks volumes to my lack of real poetic pretensions!) On the eighth day he arose… And the work goes on… With us as his apprentices Implanted with his seed The soul-seed of creation and salvation Creativity and re-creation. And so it continues day and night The living word bringing order out of chaos   Day in day out, Week in and week out, Resting from work and working from rest Until the last minute of the last day… When the hands of time tip over into eternity ...

We are coming near the end of this series of posts drawn from our Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, and here I post another poem by someone else, in this case Ann Lewin, from her anthology "Candles and Kingfishers" ( ISBN-10:   0951298232). I post this after watching the denouement of "The Great British Bakeoff" and am convinced that not only music, but good TV, cakemaking and all other creative endeavours, with a good leaven of fun, are God's gift to "enlighten duty and enliven praise" - and that is very important to me at the moment... Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.  This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. Genesis 2:1...

I've posted this twice before, but used it as part of our Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, so here it is again for the sake of completeness... Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."         Genesis 1: 26 Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror of a morning And wondered What does anyone see in me? God looked at himself in a mirror one morning A mirror which he had made… A mirror fashioned out of clay Transformed into flesh and bone… And in the mirror of man’s eye God saw himself… But it was not good. He was alone And God was never alone. He was always “us.” So God made another To make the picture complete… And that morning he saw himself in the mirror of mankind Male and female Loved and loving Created to create T...

Continuing the series on Creation and Creativity, but once again, what follows is not my own work, it is a dramatisation of Stewart Henderson's "When there was nothing" from "Homeland" (ISBN-10: 0340591188) And God said, "Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky." 21 So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth." 23 And there was evening, and there was morning--the fifth day. And God said, "Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind." And it was so. And God ...

When I restarted posting last weekend my plan was that I would post today's piece on Thursday, which was National Poetry day here in the UK... But as another poet said "the  the best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,  Gang aft agley..." And so today, in this continuing series based on our Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, I post one of my favourite poems by Gerard Manley Hopkins... Enjoy both it and the wonderful world it describes... And praise the one who made them both possible...  Then God said, "Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds." And it was so. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning - the third day. Genesis 1: 11-13 Glory be to God for dappled things – For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls;...

So here is part 3 of my series of posts based on last Sunday's Harvest Celebration of Creation and Creativity, inspired by Genesis 1. The main part of this blog, a dramatised paraphrase of Psalm 8, I have posted a number of times before in different forms... and I was going to skip it, until on Tuesday a colleague used Psalm 8 and the Casting Crowns below as part of the devotions at a training day I was at. On Sunday we also used a version of the same song, but sung by the wonderful Melanie Johnston. Great minds think alike... or something like that... And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water." So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it. And it was so. God called the expanse "sky." And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day. Genesis 1: 6-8 Dramatised Reading : Psalm 8 BOTH:          O LORD , our God, your name is ho...

As promised I will be posting a series of poems, monologues etc that we used in our Harvest Sunday Celebration of Creation and Creativity. Many of them I have posted previously as I originally wrote most of them for New Irish Arts' 10th Anniversary a whole ten years ago... This offering was originally written as a piece for 3 voices... In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2  Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Genesis 1: 1-2 Before anything was I am… Before the beginning I always had been I was in the beginning and the beginning was in me… As is the end… There was never nothing There is always me… And always will be… I am Eternally infinite… Uncreated creator Unchangeable Yet unfathomable I am But I chose to say “Let there be…” And there was There is Selah

Yesterday in church we celebrated the coming Kingdom of Justice... and I was at pains to point out that, as with the concept of peace the previous week, the Hebrew concept of justice or righteousness is so much richer than ours, which is often reduced to a legal/judicial framework... I might come back to that later in the week as it is a live issue in this part of the world at present. But one of the aspects that our limited understanding of justice/righteousness misses out on is the idea of the whole world order being put right again... Every year my wife puts up an advent calendar... You might think that our boys are now beyond such things, but there is generally a scramble to see who gets to open the window each morning (even though there is no chocolate involved this year). I was mightily please however to see that this year's advent calendar includes a very prominent elephant (above)... It reminded me of our 20th anniversary trip to Munich four years ago when the ci...

Today is one of the days when we should give thanks for St. Lubbock. Never heard of him? Well there's no point going to look in a dictionary of saints. Sir John Lubbock was a banker and politician, which in modern eyes might doubly exclude him from sainthood. But in 1871 he introduced the Bank Holidays Act, providing for additional, so called “bank” holidays on top of the existing holidays of Christmas Day, Good Friday, November 1st and May 1st. Until then, holidays were invariably holy-days, linked to church feasts… Sir John was, unlike myself, a fanatical cricket enthusiast and wanted bank employees to be able to participate in and attend matches when they were scheduled. So, the new bank holidays included the dates when cricket games were traditionally played between the villages near where Sir John was raised. The people of England , whether or not they were cricket fans, were so thankful that they called the first Bank Holidays 'St. Lubbock's Days' for a while....

A meditation based on St Francis of Assisi's Canticle of Creation/the Sun : Beyond the grey sky sits brother sun but his heat drives brother wind and draws the waters into clouds. Those clouds, our sisters, that shield the sun bear the water,  sustaining sister water,  to the parched earth; mother earth. From earth we came;  to earth we return, but all through our lives we are watched over by you, our Father God; unseen, all seeing. Grey sky may loom over us but brother sun shines on, and your love for us is more constant than the sun, with no beginning and no ending. Praise you. Hallelujah

It's a beautiful day. Blue skies. No wind. Slight bite of winter still in the air. It is a day when it is easy to praise God as you go for a morning walk in the park. It even makes a journey to work a little less depressing.  But it brought to mind a passage in Eugene Peterson's "The Contemplative Pastor." (Yes, I'm back there again.) It is probably my least favourite part of the book, where he does a miniature hagiography of Annie Dillard , the American author who has written much on the spirituality revealed in nature and the problem of pain.  But in this section Peterson, drawing on Dillard's writings, says: 'It is child's play to "appreciate nature" when the sun is shining and the birds are singing. Something far more strenuous is involved when we face and deal with the cruelty and terror that creation also deals out in spades.' Previously he makes reference to the 10% of living creatures that are parasites, which Dillard ...

In my re-reading of Peterson's "The Contemplative Pastor" recently I have been struck by his comparison of poet and pastor, which in turn has encouraged me to go back to reading some of my favourite poets. I'm currently reading some of Seamus Heaney's early stuff, drawn from his experiences growing up in rural Ulster. I suppose it registers with me because it is reminiscent of some of the stories my Dad used to tell about growing up around Cookstown, not too far from where Heaney haled from. However, the more I read Heaney, the more I'm depressed at my own juvenile-esque attempts at poetry... That said, I recognise in Heaney another theme that Peterson focuses on in "The Contemplative Pastor", that of the natural world as "The theater (sic) of God's glory." This was a phrase of John Calvin, but, as Peterson points out, Calvin may have recognised the natural world as such a theatre, but he never seems to have sat down to enjoy the show...

A continuing theme... this isn't quite a timelapse, but not far off one... This is a classic short film "Powers of Ten" which I first saw many years before the founder of fb was even a twinkle in his father's eye, never mind fb itself... I had looked for it many times over the years without any success... but it was Roddy McDevitt, who also was the source of yesterday's gem, who posted it on Friday... I can't watch it without thinking of the opening of the Nicene Creed: "We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen." Seen and unseen at both ends of the spectrum...  Selah

This is the first in a series of prayerful reflections we're going to be sharing in at Dundonald Methodist Church throughout Holy Week under the title of Endings and Beginnings. Come join us at 9.50am this morning or 8am from Monday to Friday if you are within travelling distance, or if not, share in them as they are published. They're based on the widely held thesis that John's entire Gospel paints the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as the initiation of a new creation, hence the strong parallels in the prologue, the 7 signs and 7 "I am" sayings, the early focus on "the next day" etc. This morning's reflection is based on Genesis 1: 1-5, John 1: 1-13, and John 12: 12-19.  Opening Liturgy In the beginning God… In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The Word was with God in the beginning. In the beginning God created… Through the Word everything was created; without the Word nothing was made that has ...

Ooops sorry. Been neglecting the blog a little lately (a trend I have noted among fellow bloggers too - has the blogging zeitgeist gone?). Keep forgetting even to post my promised Sunday Psalms... I promise I'll try harder in future... But for the moment here is a wee screen shot of an image I worked up for our Creation themed Cafe Church event last night... It is based on the prose poem “Earth Ball” by Olaf Skarsholt... Selah.

Have been looking at what the Bible says about Creation and Evolution with my Bible study group this week and my mind went back to this performance poem written by me. I originally posted it on the 1st February back in 2008 in response to some stuff written by Glenn Jordan over on Crookedshore, but it was first written to be performed (brilliantly) by Sharon Morwood, (now Thompson), at the Waterfront Hall as part of "Genesis", a 10th Anniversary event by New Irish Arts, inspired by the first chapter of the Bible. New Irish Arts continues to try and prompt and support Christians with a creative bent, and have now instituted a "Christian Creatives" event at the Oasis Cafe in East Belfast on the last Tuesday evening of each month. Haven't made it along myself yet but I hope to soon. If the image of the creator is imprinted on us, male and female, then we are all, in one way or another created to create... Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror of a morning ...

I was in Munich with my wife recently on a short city break… and while we were there they were getting geared up for Advent and their famous Christkindlmarkt . All over the place you could see nativity sets of all styles, sizes and sorts… Some were for sale, others were simply for decoration and/or devotion. Most of them had the usual suspects visiting Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus… angels, shepherds, and wise men with their strange gifts… but there was also an assortment of animals on display… sheep and lambs, brought in from the hillside by the shepherds, the cattle whose manger was commandeered as a cradle, the ever present donkey, a camel or two, which had presumably carried the wise men from the east, and on two occasions, elephants… Now maybe you’ve been reading a different version of the Bible from me, but I’ve never read ANYTHING about elephants in Bethlehem… Although actually, if you read the gospel accounts in Luke and Matthew there are no mentions of camels eithe...

A quick re-edit of a post I put up last week, whilst on my hols... I have just noticed that in the midst of my near fatal illness, I actually posted an earlier draft of the piece. Here is what it should have said... Just a quickie, as I'm dying (or as Sally might suggest, I have a mild summer cold). Despite my imminent demise I (with the help of Maggie the satnav) managed to get the family to our hotel near Niagara after an 8 hour trip (including breaks). This morning we then headed in to see the Falls themselves. And was amazed, nay horrified, at the astonishingly huge gulf between the beautiful, awe-inspiring power and majesty of Niagara Falls (both American and Canadian/Horseshoe varieties, though particularly the latter) and the tacky, commercial, dollar-gobbling gungy-ness (if that is a word) of the town that overlooks it and shares its name. After a jaw-dropping trip on the Maid of the Mist we got out of town as fast as we could to the much more genteel Niagara on the Lake. B...

Well, I've put off blogging about it long enough... but it is now time to comment on last Sunday's service here in Faith UMC, which was outdoors and included an act of Blessing for Animals... It supposedly came about as a suggestion by the Worship Team here, to which Geoff Hayes, the incumbent minister said, "That's a really good idea... But I'll be in Northern Ireland!" I suspect it may have been his revenge on me for leaving him to feed our cat, even though he is allergic! But lots of people on both sides of the Atlantic have laughed their legs off at the whole thing, especially since I am borderline phobic about dogs. Different people helpfully suggested different incidental music, including, Bob Dylan's "Man Gave Names to All the Animals", Dr. Doolittle's "If I Could Talk to the Animals", or the theme tune from the Vicar of Dibley, in tribute to an episode of that dreadful sitcom when the said vicar hosted a similar service. I w...

One of our first memorable experiences on arriving in Grand Rapids was discovering a dead skunk lying outside the church. He has long since been removed but his memory still pungently remains. Thankfully most of our subsequent experiences of West Michigan wildlife has been less aromatic. We've seen some amazing birds around the area including bright red cardinals, we've had rabbits and squirrels in the back yard and others have told us that there are also deer roaming around the district, but we have yet to see any up close. I am, however, being slowly eaten alive by the insect life here... This morning Bill and Beth Murray attempted to take us on a visit to the local Blanford Nature Centre to see some more exotica, only to have yet another thunderstorm cut short the expedition. Although by that stage we had already seen a number of different hawks, some turkey vultures, a couple of varieties of owl, some turtles and a bobcat that was seriously freaked out at the impending stor...