SOUL SURMISE

I HAVE STOPPED KILLING SPIDERS...

(my Pause For Thought on the Vanessa Show on BBC Radio 2... the theme was The Wonders Of Nature...)

I have stopped killing spiders. Even if they are one step away. Why? Well, I was given a new perspective on all insects. I have a friend called Neville who loves creepy crawlies. And knows all about them. If you are with him and see a spider he will pick it up and no matter how small will tell you the kind of spider and the gender.

So, this summer in Africa he was in his element. He gave a couple of hours palliative care to a dying Citrus Swallowtail Butterfly and spent a lunch in Murchison Falls Safari Park with a Praying Mantis on his head! It was like having the Richard Attenborough of creepy crawlies on tour with you. I learned a lot! 

What Neville’s relationship with bugs does is that it changes mine. I lost my irrational fear and became utterly fascinated. Insects became a wonder of nature and I began to understand their place in the cosmos that, as a believer, I believe God designed. 

I thought of all of this while I watched in horror as English footballers were exposed to shocking racist abuse in Bulgaria. A commentator suggested that the Bulgarian fans needed educating. I then thought of Neville’s work with me.

Hatred is compromised by friendship. It is difficult to racially assault people you know. My prejudices in the sectarian atmosphere of Northern Ireland disappeared when I got closer to those on the other side of that divide. It took away my irrational fears and ignorance.

If insects are fascinating, then humans are even more so. As a Christian I believe that God made all the wonders of nature but he left a special imprint on human beings. We are made in his image the Bible suggests. 

If I take that idea into my day then I see all of my fellow human beings with a whole new perspective. In spite of prejudices that I work to eradicate I will not step on other people’s differences but will marvel at them, cherish them and pray that they will find the fulness of their humanity in the image of God.

I FORGIVE YOU... THREE DIFFICULT WORDS - AN AMISH RESPONSE

(this was my Pause For Thought on BBC Radio 2 on October 9th 2019... the theme for the week was Forgiveness...)

 

Sorry seems to be the hardest word. Could the more difficult three words be I forgive you. Coming from Northern Ireland we live in a perpetual struggle over the legacy of our Troubles that left more than 3,500 people dead. Sorry. I forgive you. Big words.

I am constantly inspired by the Amish people. The everyday ordinariness of their extraordinary forgiveness came to my attention at the time of the Nickel Mines Schoolhouse shootings in Lancaster County, Pennsylvannia back in 2006. Charles Roberts, a non Amish gunman, shot ten young Amish girls, killing five of them dead.

The response of this Amish community was startling. Within hours of the shootings, the Amish had visited the killer’s wife and parents. They not only told them that they forgave them but they actually set up a charitable fund for the killer’s children.

I forgive you to the family of the killer of your children. What kind of love is this? Jesus told us to love our neighbours and God… BUT he went further and asked us to love our enemies. For the Amish community Jesus call to love and forgiveness were not to be discussed or debated. They were ideas to be lived. The Amish community teach their children about forgiveness from the moment they can teach them anything. 

Yet, forgiveness for the Amish is not about wiping some objective slate clean. Forgiving is a loving act that seeks to build friendship with those that they should be at enmity with. This kind of forgiveness and love is at the heart of the Christian faith. God doesn’t only forgive us… he reaches out to build relationship with us. Every Thursday night Charles Roberts’ mother now reads and prays with a severely brain damaged little girl that her son shot.

Taking Jesus command to love and forgive seriously is not going to be easy but when it breaks in, it changes people and communities. Sorry - hard. I forgive you - even more difficult. BUT… How would my wee country be if we didn’t only forgive but made friends with those we are at enmity with? 

A SONG THAT SAVED A MAN FROM SUICIDE

This is the script of my Pause For Thought on Vanessa Feltz, BBC Radio 2, on September 25, 2019. The theme was For The Love Of Music...

 

I have lived for the love of music since my cousin Sharon introduced me to Donny Osmond and David Cassidy when I was 10. 

Ever since I have often found solace in music.  When yet another girl rejected me or  Manchester City got beaten I went into my music room, the privilege of being an only child, and put some vinyl on the turntable and set the needle down. The songs calmed my angst. 

In my pilgrimage of following Jesus, songs have continued to be sources of solace but also conduits of guidance, thermometers to take the cultural temperature and fuel to fire my imagination. 

A number of years ago my friend and songwriter Martyn Joseph was chatting to me about how he saw songs as companions for the journey. He wrote a song about a woman called Clara that spelt out what he meant. 

It is a true story. A young black woman, called Clara, gets a job nursing a baby that his rich parents didn’t really want. Years later that baby has grown up and his feeling of worthlessness, as an unwanted child, has led him to the brink of suicide. As he heads out into the desert to take his life a song comes to him, from he doesn’t know where, and it stops him. He goes on to live the life of a successful writer 

Meanwhile an ageing Clara seeks out the child that she used to look after. She finds him, they meet up and as she goes to leave him she sings a song. It is that song. Suddenly the writer knows who saved his life.

Songs can be such companions. The Psalms in the Hebrew scriptures were companion songs for the Jews. They would sing them on the way up to Jerusalem for Festivals. They sang them in exile by the rivers of Babylon. When Jesus is dying he is heard quoting a Psalm.

Often I look for a song to see me through. It might be a song to celebrate, a song to help me to be still, a song to stimulate vision, a song to soothe my blues.  I am thankful that my cousin gave me the love of music and that I am blessed with quite a few Claras.

AN INKLING OF WHAT IT IS ABOUT... ON BALLYCASTLE BEACH

This was my Pause For Thought on Vanessa Feltz, BBC Radio 2 on September 18, 2019. The theme was The Still Small Voice...

 

The north coast of Northern Ireland has been in the spotlight recently. Not only Game Of Thrones but the British Open golf. The Open was played in Portrush. As a child I loved Portrush. It was loud and bright and busy. Amusements, Rollercoaster, big beaches.

Ballycastle along the coast, I really did not like. It seemed a little dull. Yet twenty years later my wife and I bought a house there because it was cheaper. And in the last twenty years I have come to love the quieter town… smaller… less crowded… more scenic beach views.

We live in a bright loud world and being still and reflective has become a lost art, a rarity, a very difficult task. Almost by default Ballycastle beach has become my meditative space. In the late evening we walk across the beach and marvel at the sunsets behind Kinbane Head and Rathlin Island.

It is on these walks that I hear most God’s still small voice. This is where my body, heart and soul slow down. When I stop for a deep breath. Here I often have a sense that in a very ordinary evening walk something extraordinary is going on. 

Like a while back. Out for the nightly stroll I looked across at my wife Janice… our beloved dog Jed. I then looked out at Fair Head, our high cliff shelter, all its veins jutting out in strength and beauty.

And the still small voice inside me whispered, “Look Steve… do you get it. This is what the human life is all about”

So I started to ponder. The Christian Bible begins and ends with visions of oneness… between human and human… human and creation… human and God. 

The entire Christian story is based around broken relationships being somehow restored by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. The still small voice was pointing out that I was getting an inkling of it as I held my wife’s hand and smiled at our dog’s love, and as I inwardly gave thanks for the wonder of creation. 

I then heard the voice of Van Morrison speaking about another part of Northern Ireland, “Wouldn't it be great if it was like this all the time”.

RELENTLESSNESS - CRITIQUING HOME FROM FAR AWAY

This was my Pause For Thought on the Vanessa Show on BBC Radio 2 on June 28.6.19. The theme was "Leaving Home"...

 

We leave home on Monday 8th for what has become an annual trip to Uganda. We will fly over night… 24 hours from Belfast door to Kampala door, then after a good sleep we will take an 11 or 12 hour bus journey to Arua, on the north west edge of Uganda. 

It is not only a long way from home geographically, it is a long way culturally and economically. We will be in Arua for around 10 days with a team of 18 from our Church. We funded the building of a school and we will have an amazing time playing games and doing crafts as well as teaching sexual health and doing some painting among other things.

We will also take in a different culture where choice of food is not as varied, where leisure time is not in such abundance and where just getting by needs resilience and ingenuity.

And we learn about home. There is nothing like being in the middle of Africa to force you to critique your decadence, materialism and self obsession. For me there is always a thought that my wealth carries with it all kinds of bad traits.

One year, on a University team, in another part of Africa, I asked my students what they were least looking forward to, going home. One student said simply, The Relentlessness. Being in Africa where the pressure of fashion, looks, achievement and accumulation were absent she had found some sort of calm. She didn’t want to go back.

Jesus spoke a lot about the dangers and delusion of relentlessness and advised that we should worry about tomorrow but like the birds of the air and the flowers of the field should trust a simpler way of doing life. All the stuff of earth he suggested was flimsy and meaningless. Not worth the relentlessness of acquiring. 

I have never forgotten my student’s word. It lingers with me. It took us to leave home to look back and learn. I look forward to more lessons when I finally reach Arua on July 10th… 

BEING INSPIRED BY TREVOR STEVENSON'S STORY

(Trevor and I with Anett at Bethel Royal School, January 2018)

This is my script for today's Pause For Thought on BBC Radio Uister with Vanessa Feltz which had the theme Best Story Ever...

 

Last Summer I spent six weeks sabbatical in someone else’s story, as I did some editing and writing of my friend Trevor’s memoir.

The story begins with Trevor flying back from Uganda, wrestling with God about what to do about the poverty that he had experienced in a short trip to help a school develop a farm. 

Trevor felt that that trip was his contribution. He was training to be a vicar. He had no time to think anymore about Uganda. But God and his feelings for the poor people he had met wouldn’t leave him alone and he finally gave in and decided the best way he could help was by raising £100,000 for a better farm for the school.

After the money was raised it was suggested that someone had to with the money and set up the farm. Again Trevor was sure that that wasn’t him but after failing to get anyone else he and his wife Ruth set off to spend 3 years in Uganda.

The farm was eventually set up but one morning the Local Councillors appeared and asked Trevor if he would build a school for their children to get an education.

Trevor hadn’t the first interested in education but after some thought they decided to build the school. Surely that was the end of the story but no… someone else asked about another school and someone else gave enough money.

January 2018 I traveled with Trevor to Karamoja, almost the Ugandan wild west where only 20% of children go to school. We were there because the graduates from the 120 schools that have now been built had raised money to give other poor children like they had once been an education. It was an emotional day. It is quite a story and I haven’t mentioned the 700,000 water wells dug by Trevor’s organisation.

What I learned as I spent six weeks of my life in the chapters of Trevor’s memoir is that Trevor had no big plan. In 1993 on the plane home he could never have envisaged what is happening now across Uganda and neighbouring countries.

Trevor wasn’t a great visionary, just an ordinary ex farmer come vicar. What he did have was the faith to take the next step that God asked him to take. When God gave him a door he took a leap of faith through it. Working with Trevor on his story has inspired me that if I have the courage to follow where God leads me next that I might be amazed at what God can do in my ordinary life!

 

We are in the last edits of Trevor's book. Hopefully you will be reading it, later in the year. Watch this space!

AGAINST THE ODDS TO FIGHTING THE ODDS - LEVIXONE'S STORY - BBC Radio 2 Pause For Thought 7.6.19

(this is this morning's Thought For The Day on Vanessa, BBC Radio 2... Being BBC, I had to drop names of schools and Fields of Life... they are back in here... this is Levixone's God's grace generously drenched story... there's talk of him being around Ireland in September... watch this space)

 

I found myself in a slum in Kampala. I have been in some of the poorest slums across our world but Kosovo in Kampala is pretty rough. 

As I arrived the skies opened. Slums look even poorer in the rain. The lack of tarmac is more obvious, as you hop and jump across wet stagnant puddles and red clay mud. The tarpaulin, that people are hiding under, looks even more fragile. The wood and hardboard of those who live in do-it-yourself shacks look even darker and bleaker. 

I stood out of the downpour in Treasure Kids Primary School with Pastor Deo and Levixone. Levixone had been a street kid. Later he showed us the pool table that he used to sleep under at night. 

When he was about ten years of age, Levixone  appeared one day in Pastor Deo’s school playground to play football. He had hardly any clothes to wear. Levixone was like so many, surviving against the odds. 

Pastor Deo however was from a Christian tradition where the odds were constantly over turned. Jesus from death on a cross to resurrection. Indeed on Sunday churches around the world celebrate Pentecost, the birth of the Church by a motley crew, led by fishermen!

Pastor Deo’s faith made him a fighter against the odds. He connected Levixone with Fields Of Life’s school sponsorship programme that was fighting against the odds of education in East Africa. Levixone got sponsored by a man in Dublin to go to Treasure Kids and then on to Grace High School.

Today, Levixone is a pop star. A charismatic performer with great songs and a wonderful voice. His blend of African, dance, reggae and Gospel makes him regularly #1 in a variety of charts. Last week he won Best AFRO POP ARTIST OF EXCELLENCE. 

That would be enough but wait… Levixone still lives in the Kosovo slum where he runs a feeding programme for his people. He even showed me a house he and his friends had built after finding a woman living in no more than a chicken shack. 

A wee African boy growing up against the odds meets a range of Fighters Against the Odds who help him beat those darned odds. Now he fights those odds for others! For me that’s a win!

FR ALEC REID; PEACE AMBASSADOR - BBC RADIO 2 PAUSE FOR THOUGHT 24.10.18

This week's Pause for Thought theme was Peace Ambassadors

Nikki, when I became the minister of Fitzroy nine years ago I walked into a community of Peace Ambassadors. My predecessor Rev Dr Ken Newell had built a relationship with Fr Gerry Reynolds from Clonard Monastery, run by the Redemptorist Order, on Belfast’s Falls Road. They founded the Clonard/Fitzroy Fellowship still going strong today.

Early meetings of the Northern Ireland peace talks were held in Clonard and Ken with other members of Fitzroy were involved in the discussions. The work of Gerry and Ken and the Fellowship was recognised when in 1999 they were awarded the prestigious Pax Christi Peace Prize. 

Fr Gerry and Rev Ken however would recognise another Redemptorist priest from Clonard as the actual architect of the peace process. Fr Alec Reid got to a point in Belfast’s mid 80s where he could not reconcile his faith in Jesus with doing nothing about the violence going on in the streets around him.

One Saturday afternoon Fr Alec found himself in the middle of that violence. In a 14 day period where killing had gone viral, two British soldiers accidentally drove into an IRA funeral cortege. 

Fr Alec risked his own life in a vain attempt to save the soldiers. Minutes later he is photographed, with the soldiers blood on his face, having tried to give them the kiss of life. They died.

Unknown to everyone, Fr Alec was at the funeral to receive a letter from Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. The letter had the conditions by which Sinn Fein would enter peace talks with politician John Hume. That same afternoon Fr Alec drove to Derry and handed the letter to John Hume. It would be six years before we had peace but it started right there.

It is an unbelievable story of one man who had faith in a radical Jesus and who believed that peace making was at the heart of that faith. Believing was not enough though and he went into the very vortex of the violence to make connections that brought the peace we enjoy today.

Ken Newell describes Alec as the electrician of our peace. He brought the two wires together that ignited a long journey to reconciliation. 

JANICE SHOUTS STOP AND TAKES OVER THE DRIVING - Pause for Thought, The Early Breakfast Show - 17.10.18

This week's theme was Changing Directions...

It was a fun day. I were in Cape Town and though it was South African winter in July, it was sunny. I was with my family and some of my Chaplaincy staff. We were leading University student teams, building houses on townships. We were on a few days off, between teams.

We were out looking for an art gallery. It was an area of town that I didn’t really know. I remember coming up to the end of a side street and turning right. I think I knew immediately that it was a wrong turn. Even my staff in the car behind didn’t follow me.

As I confessed last week Vanessa one of my weaknesses is being in the wrong lane. I kept driving, knowing I needed to turn without ever getting into a position to do so. A few miles of this and my wife Janice shouts “STOP!” She gets me out of the car and takes control herself, turns the car around and drives us to the gallery! 

Christianity, and indeed all other faiths, make it clear that there is a need for humility when we are going in the wrong direction. I find it difficult even with those closest to me. Admitting I am wrong doesn’t come easy. Getting out of the car in the middle of the road and doing the walk of shame to the passengers side!!! Ouch!

Christianity, again like other faiths, also encourages us to seek help when we are in difficulty. I have long stopped being embarrassed to seek help from others. For me that can be Janice who helps fix me in more ways than just turning the car round… or it might also be a good friend or indeed God. 

One thing is for sure. When I am heading in the wrong direction I have found it helpful when someone shouts "STOP!"  If Janice hadn’t shouted "STOP!" we would have been past Cape Point and on our way to the Antarctic… (shivering sound)

MY GREATEST WEAKNESS - PAUSE FOR THOUGHT - BBC RADIO 2 - 10:10:18

My wife laughed when I told her that this week’s theme was “my greatest weakness”. Oh my could she could wax lyrical on that subject. And she often does.

Losing my keys every morning, which I truthfully believe is in my DNA because my mother could never find hers. Always being in the wrong lane, while driving. Again a carbon copy of my dad! 

Oh, if Janice was Sarah Millican she could get a comedy show out of my weaknesses and their outworking. Of course there are worse things than keys and motorway lanes!

I can remember my history teacher in Sixth Form telling us that any great person in history was one who knew their weaknesses. Like a boxer who knew they had an easily cut eye, they could then defend that weakness. 

The singer Tom Petty, who we lost a year ago last week, called these weaknesses fault lines. Like the San Andreas Fault under California, always waiting to quake, Petty thought we all had weak foundations running under our lives, that might give way at any minute.

As much as I can, in my life, I try to seek out those fault lines. I realise that I might have prejudices or see the world a little skewed because of the culture of where I was born, my social class, the spiritual character of the Church I grew up in, the political ideology I am steeped in and, to go back to the lost keys, there are no doubt fault lines in my DNA.

Jesus was always intuitive to peoples’ fault lines. When he met a Samaritan woman at a well he observed her gender, her race, her religion and how she was looked upon by her community and read the fault lines running under her life. They were very different than they fault lines he recognised when he met Nicodemus, a man, a Jew and a religious leader.

Jesus loved them both but to make that love fulfil its potential in their lives he assessed how to minister to their unique individual fault lines. 

As I go into my day, seeking to love my neighbour, I am constantly aware that everyone I meet has fault lines that I need to understand… and if I am to be anyway helpful to them I need to be acutely aware of the greatest weaknesses running under my life.