Virtual Methodist

Being in a confessing mood after my previous blog here's another one... I didn't go to church last Sunday night... Indeed I haven't been to church any Sunday night since I got here... And it's amazing... the world didn't end and the church actually thrives. But anyway, worse (in the eyes of many a NI Evangelical) than not going to church, I, and all my family, went to the theatre. It WAS a benefit performance for the United Methodist Community House, and we were invited there by one of the staff. The production was called "Crowns" and it was an ensemble musical celebration of the faith and life of women from the African-American tradition, and particularly their love of hats and other headgear... the "crowns" of the title. Now, without getting overly critical and putting my writer/director/actor hat on, it could have been a little less didactic and had more narrative drive and dramatic energy about it... Then perhaps I wouldn't have kept fall...

Yet another responsive Psalm, this time devised for a service in Braniel Church. I think that some of it reflected the bleak place that I found myself in mentally and spiritually a week or two ago. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; I’m in the depths of darkness, despair and death. O Lord, please hear my voice. Open your ears to my cries for mercy. If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, who could stand before you? But you are a forgiving God, and that is why you should be adored. I wait for you expectantly O, Lord, and in your word I put my hope. I’m watching and waiting for the morning to break, I’m watching and waiting for the morning. O people of God, put your hope in the Lord, for the love of the Lord is unfailing With him comes full redemption. The Lord himself will pay the price of his people’s sins. from Psalm 130 (© David Campton 2008)