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Viewpoint from Rev Judith Bell 09/05/2025
 Rev Judith Bell
Presbyter in the Norfolk Broads Methodist Circuit
Minister for Bradwell, Caister, Christchurch, Magdalen Way, and Newtown Methodist Churches
What was your experience of this year’s Early May Bank Holiday? Does it have any particular significance for you?
Depending on the sources you look to, this Bank Holiday is said to be influenced by the Roman Festival of Flora or the Celtic festival of Beltane; positioned midway between spring and summer. The seeds have been planted, and so the ground is full of promise but one must wait to see the fruits of your labour. Both festivals celebrate fertility, the summer pastures opening for grazing, and seek to protect the future yields
 In more recent years the early-May Bank Holiday has become linked with International Workers Day (1st May). A day first marked as part of the campaign for an 8-hour working day – a day for working people to come together to celebrate and demonstrate for a better life
As a Christian within the Methodist tradition, I see parallels between both these origins and the worldview I hold, underpinned by my faith. From the start, Methodists have felt our beliefs need to be lived out in action – that we have a duty to work with God to help make the world more in line with the ways of God’s Kingdom. In recent years, we’ve expressed these principles of justice seeking like this:
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God desires the flourishing of creation and human community within it
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God consistently shows a bias to people experiencing poverty and those who are excluded
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God entrusts those in power with a special responsibility for upholding justice
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God calls all people and nations actively to work for peace and justice, liberation and transformation
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God calls us to live in hope and in ways that reflect God’s character and the pattern of God’s kingdom
I wonder if any of these principles speak to you?
It strikes me that the themes of the Early May Bank Holiday chime with God’s desire that human community, along with the whole of creation, might flourish. Just like tiny seeds planted in the ground can produce large plants if they are given time and nurture, as celebrated at the fertility festivals of other religions, our tiny actions can add up to help make the world a better place
I invite you to take one new action, however small, to help care for the world God has given us and/or the people who we share this world with. May we celebrate the place we live in and the people we live with, not just in early May but every day
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