Visiting Calvingrad

Earlier this week the BBC took me to Geneva for three days to record some interviews on Calvin (in Gaelic) which will be broadcast later this year. Along with Jessie Boydell, also from the Isle of Lewis, and currently living in Paris, we were able to visit Calvin sites and see the Museum of the Reformation. It fairly whetted my appetite for the Conference (www.calvin500.org), although I will only have a couple of days at it. Some interesting reflections: grafitti on a wall near our hotel saying 'Geneve = Kalvingrad', an interview with Isabelle Graessle, director of the Museum and the first female Moderator of the Company of Pastors, looking at the first edition of the Institutes in the Museum, and standing before Hornung's famous painting of Calvin's Farewell. All so moving, and all such an important lesson in the difference one life can make when it is dedicated to God.

There were light touches, of course, like reading the following sentence in one of the Museum's english information bulletins: 'Everyday he [Calvin] takes some time in his busy schedule to write a large number of letters, but was often disturbed by a visit or a phone call...' [I kid you not - I guess literal translations are the problem - but the image of Calvin writing his letters when his mobile rings and Farel's number comes up on the screen stretches the imagination!].

And, of course, there was the long lost photograph of Calvin which I've put on my blog.....