BREATH OF HOPE

Breathe in

Breathe out

Run the other way

From all the doubt

Dark beats the light

We push others away

Light blinds the dark

In a brand new day.

 

We need a breath of hope

In this dying place

In this valley of death

We need a kiss of grace.

 

Breathe out 

Breathe in

Let’s search our souls

And find we are forgiven

Being right’s so wrong

Confession is so wise

Wrongs can lead to right

From sacrifice we rise.

 

We need a breath of hope

In this dying place

In this valley of death

We need a kiss of grace

 

Will I be the dark

Will I be the death

Will I be the kiss

Will I be the breath?

 

This is a random collection of thoughts on the current Northern Irish political collapse. A whole range of things came together around a phrase that Corrymeela’s Susan McEwen used at a meeting I was at this week. Susan suggested we need a breath of hope.

I was at a Crosby, Stills and Nash concert later that evening and in the very first song their blissful harmonies hit me with the breath of hope:

“Carry on

(Carry on)

Love is coming

(Love is coming)

Love is coming

(Love is coming)

To us all”

Elsewhere in these couplets there is a Saint Ignatius’ thought that Fr Martin Magill shared with me that we should run the opposite way from how we feel. I needed to turn away from my disillusionment and discouragement and breath in some hope so that I could breath out some hope. 

I also believe that the idol of Northern Ireland life is the need to be right. Sometimes what is right is not always what is good or that which will bring peace and well being. The Gospel is actually about wrong things. We believe that it was wrong that Jesus should die on a cross and wrong that the sinner should go free. If God had stuck with right then redemption and the Kingdom coming would never have been possible!