Virtual Methodist

Just finished reading Louise Glück's 2006 collection of poems "Averno", and the following piece is prompted by her poem, "Landscape" where she describes the present as "the part of the present you can see." It set me thinking (possibly in the light of reading "The Order of Time" by Carlo Rovelli recently and some work I am involved with here regarding the historical legacy in Northern Ireland) that not only do we  need to make the most of the present moment in general, but especially here in Northern Ireland where the understanding of the past and hopes for the future are both contested spaces. Yes, I know that the semantic interplay of "gift" and "present" is a bit of a cliché, but it does capture for me the precious nature of the "now." There is also a shamelessly clumsy hybrid reference to famous lines by both Dickinson and Marvell. But if you are going to plunder other poets  for inspiration, pi...

There’s an opportune time to do things, a right time for everything on the earth:   A right time for birth and another for death, A right time to plant and another to reap, A right time to kill and another to heal, A right time to destroy and another to construct, A right time to cry and another to laugh, A right time to lament and another to cheer, A right time to make love and another to abstain, A right time to embrace and another to part, A right time to search and another to count your losses, A right time to hold on and another to let go, A right time to rip out and another to mend, A right time to shut up and another to speak up, A right time to love and another to hate, A right time to wage war and another to make peace. Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8   We'll it's almost a month on from my last blog post... and a number of people recently have asked why I have stopped posting so regularly? Frankly it has been a question of time... I haven't had enough of it to do...

Last Thursday evening at the "Listening to Your Enemies" event in Skainos, Jo Berry emphasised that it is important to have a safe space for difficult discussions... sadly the environment around Skainos seemed anything but safe that night. A couple of friends, colleagues and congregation members have already suggested to me, via email, facebook and face to face that the 4 Corners Festival and/or EBM /Skainos were naïve/arrogant/bloody stupid (delete as applicable) to field such an event in inner east Belfast, especially given recent interface tensions with the Short Strand residents, flag protests, the stand-off after the twelfth parade last year and other tensions concerning Skainos itself. Those who believed that it was still a worthwhile event, just not at the right time or in the right place, have asked why we didn't swap the two Methodist events and have the 4 Church Leaders event in Skainos and the Berry/Magee one on my own patch, the Agape Centre...

In our service this morning, in honour of the change to BST last night, our intern, Patrick Harley is leading our All Age Service on the theme of "Time." I'll be continuing that theme tonight at our Cafe Church when we'll be sharing in this adaptation of the famous passage from  Ecclesiastes: There is a right time for everything, and a season for everything that happens on the earth: A right time to be born and a right time to die,   A right time to plant and a right time to reap,   A right time to kill and a right time to heal,   A right time to demolish and a right time to construct,   A right time to weep and a right time to laugh,   A right time to mourn and a right time to dance,   A right time to break down walls and a right time to build them up, A right time to make love and a right time to abstain,   A right time to search and a right time to count your losses,   A right time to hold on and a right time ...

Nearly one month on from the riots in England, the repercussions and recriminations are still going on… and there seems to be no clear consensus of what really caused them… Was it a function of social marginalisation, or recreational rioting? A sign of general moral decline or shopping with violence… Riots can be sparked off by the slightest of things… I’ve even known riots in Belfast kick off because of a football result in Glasgow. But on this day back in 1752 there were apparently riots in many British cities because of a change in the calendar. Britain was one of the last countries to adopt the Gregorian calendar in place of the Julian one, and so by that stage Britain was 11 days out of sync with the actual position of the earth around the Sun, and consequently most of the rest of Europe… The solution… just lop 11 days out of the calendar… Hence in 1752 people leapt straight from the 2nd of September to the 14th… Producing the strange anomaly in Ireland that we remember the B...