Virtual Methodist

In order to counterbalance last week's repost of Ben Myer's 12 Theses on Sadness , and to allay the fears of those who think I'm about to take a long walk off a short pier, here is his recent post on "Joy." Maybe it's just where I am, but I don't find his thinking quite so compelling as in last week's post, however I do firmly believe in something said by Gerald Coates (always one to say something interesting, even if it is completely bonkers far too often) "If the joy of the Lord is our strength, it's little wonder that the church in Britain has been so weak and ineffective." Gerald Coates (1984) Anyway, here's Ben Myer's "Ode to Joy" 1. As icons are painted on gold, so the lives of saints are written on a background of light. 2. Evelyn Underhill knew a saintly man, Father Wainwright. ‘He was an indifferent – and in later years an inarticulate – preacher; people came to his sermons, not so much to listen as to look at h...

It's not often that I reblog someone else's piece in its entirety, but this is too good not to... I picked it up through Richard Hall over at Connexions (a great site for picking up material from across the blogsphere when it is not being assailed by Zionists) but it is originally by Ben Myers over on Faith and Theology . Its on a theme I've been touching on a lot recently (clearly my time of life!!!) but it isn't a theme that is covered by many Christian writers. It also mashes well with the song by Andrew Peterson I've posted at the end of the article. 1. The precursor of the human smile was the caveman’s savage grimace ( Angus Trumble, A Brief History of the Smile , p. 3). The invention of dentistry is the main difference between this threatening grimace and the polite social convention of the modern smile. 2. In the Protestant West today, smiling has become a moral imperative. The smile is regarded as the objective externalisation of a well ordered life. ...