In we filed, squinting in the harsh fluorescent light, six of us, clones, dressed in pin-stripes suits, carrying pads of yellow paper, pencils, audit programmes and of course our precious briefcases housing indispensable calculators. The bald headed, older man at the corner desk, looked up, showed the ghost of a smile under his greying moustache and sighed. The auditors had arrived for another year. It was the late 1970’s in Northolt, west London. North Sea oil had been discovered and […]

Following the death of Prince Philip there’s been a lot of talk about duty about how he was a man committed to his duty. However, I’m not sure we are always clear about what we mean by duty. Duty can be thought of in two ways: positive duty that is the duty to assist; and negative duty which is the duty not to cause harm. It is generally thought that negative duties outweigh positive duties and so are more fundamental. […]

I’m a bit of a mixture. I’m an Irish woman who lived over half her life in Britain. I’m a qualified doctor but also an ordained minister. Although I was ordained in the Church of England and now associate myself with the Church of Ireland, I spend at least half my time working for or worshipping with the Methodist church. Although strongly extrovert by nature I really appreciate time on my own. I love words and things of the mind […]

Before the last year, none of us could have envisaged the changes which have now become an accepted part of our everyday lives – the social distancing, the masks, the lockdowns. And of course, these changes have been reflected in our church life too. For the short number of weeks since last March when we were physically able to meet together, the ‘new normal’ seemed far from normal and certainly very far from how we were accustomed to worship. We […]

Who enjoys nightmares? The clue’s in the name. Nightmares wreck sleep, sap confidence and breed an insidious fear. Mine was persistent, and always the same. Ever since I was small, the feeling of falling. Falling out of bed. Falling off a cliff. Falling, for ever. Tumbling over, hair flowing like a flag, and arms and legs spreadeagled like a runaway cartwheel. Soundless screams coming from my lips. Down and down, through the darkness, in an ever-narrowing tunnel. There was no […]

I have just received my census form and was having a quick look at the questions. As usual there is a question on religion, and although it is slightly different in the England and Wales census from the NI census the outcome will be the same. We will have a measure of those who say they are Christian. Now go forward a couple of years when the census results start to be published. We will have our normal breast beating […]

The Story is the paraphrase of Luke and Acts that is being studied at the moment by the Circuit with Jordan, and also through PresenCE, the Portaferry cross-community group. We are now half way through and so far each week has raised questions on interpretation. It is interesting that these issues arise in what are relatively familiar books of the Bible so I thought it might be of interest to remind ourselves of a traditional Methodist approach, the Methodist quadrilateral. […]

I go for my first Covid jab on Sunday and feel privileged to have this opportunity. What is so disturbing is the extent of the misinformation around the vaccination. Truth is a vital component of a healthy democracy but we also need trust, and for some that has been sadly eroded in recent years, so giving space for the conspiracy theorists. However I wonder how many people really believed this story. My sister works for the Ministry of Defence and […]

As a short forty-something, I don’t make a habit of climbing trees, but today’s an exception. Rumour suggests a celeb’s coming. I’m up here to see him, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks. All my life, I’ve so wanted to be tall, not bullied. My grandmother telling me that all the men in my family line had been short was no consolation. I longed to be one of the gang. ‘Go away shorty,’ [that’s the benign version] was […]