HEAD UP NORTH (On Bonfire Night)

HEAD UP NORTH (On Bonfire Night)

 

(This was inspired by having to preach my first July sermons in nearly twenty years... on the evening of July 11^th I was sharing thoughts from 2 Chronicles 7: 14 and how we need to “humble ourselves and pray, seek God’s face and turn from our wicked ways”... and to critique my own background I was thinking of what we could throw on the Eleventh night bonfire... then listening to Tom Petty’s Drivin’ South as I literally headed north drew these thoughts out of me over the following week... might seem critical but there are other more positive reflections in other poems...)

 

I’m going to head up north again

Past Churches as gray as the weather

Watch the summer’s patience with the sun

And see God at the end of his tether

Ghosts are caught dancing on these Atlantic breezes

And not all of them are holy

The Mission Halls still full on Sunday night

They frightened but never consoled me.

 

I’m going to head up north again

Through fertile farmlands to the sea

Coastline, castles, Giant’s Causeway

And the beaches stretched out in front of me

And east the rocky rugged mountains

Where we pushed off all the Catholics

Are we not nearly ready to confess

For all our sectarian geographics

 

I’m going to head up north again

Try to navigate around the parades

Where we march all day to drunken fields

Playing cultural and religious charades

Strap Lambeg drums to big strong chests

Stick our victory up our neighbour’s face

Shouldn’t we love them like we love ourselves

Carry our faith with humility and grace

 

Maybe with all those empty boxes

And tyres their tread worn thin

We should throw our pride on the Bonfire

With all our arrogance and sin

Yes, hurl the myths we’ve told ourselves

All those lies and their exaggerations

The stories we decide to tell ourselves

Shape our children and the nation

So let us pile repentance way up high

Watch our troubles burn in the flickering light

Then I’ll head up north and celebrate

On a glorious Eleventh night. 

 

 

Comments

[Alan Gaston]

Your poem reminds me of one of those formative moments in my life, when I realised there was a chasm between the Christianity I was brought up with and the "Christianity" of popular protestantism in my homeland. I stood in Barnett's park overlooking "the field" at Edenderry and watched with horror as this drunken mob swayed to the words of Ps 23. I was nearly physically sick.
A deep discomfort started that day. One that always made me uneasy in NI around the 12th and one that did not lessen when, many years later, I lived across the road from that same "field".
Maybe I have taken the easy road by running away to another land.

[Steve]

Funny, I've just been listening to a pile of albums I've not listened to in years and amongst them was a Pedro the Lion album containing the song "Suspect Fled the Scene" - Its repeated lyric "Ride as fast as you can, they're shootin' to kill" is too often Good Advice when it comes to our "Christian" subcultures!

Still, I wouldn't be too dismal about the Orange Order and its cultural trappings. God can be very disobedient when it comes to using the methods we lay out for Him in drawing people to Him. My cousin joined a few years ago and developed a level of spiritual awakening that surprised me given his past - and its source.

From a cultural perspective, I think we in NI are extremely fortunate, a fact that seems to be eluding us. The bonfires and parades are an extraordinary popular festival that should be cherished, not exterminated. I love that I can watch an Orange parade one day then a few days later go to a hurling match (an amazing sport!!). We can easily find aspects of our culture(s?) that hurt our sensibilities, but we've been focusing on that for far too long, and to no good end. Time to not just accept, but embrace.