SOUL SURMISE

IN A WEEK LIKE THIS (MY RESPONSE TO THE OMAGH BOMB)

21 years ago today my country was in shock as news of the Omagh bomb broke.  It was a Saturday afternoon when the Real IRA, who opposed the IRA ceasefire, set off a bomb in Omagh town centre. Everyone thought of who they knew that might be caught up in it. In the end 29 were callously murdered.

It was my turn to do a Thought For The Day on BBC Radio Ulster six days later. This was my prayer as I reflected on the week that we had grieved through.

 

Lord, we come to the end of another week
Except it hasn't been just another week
It has been the worst week of our lives
And even worse for some
Lord help us to be honest, vulnerable and somehow hopeful in the reflection of our feelings

Lord we have been shocked
Shocked by how one tiny second can tear our lives apart
Shocked by how far humanity can fall
Shocked by how callous and painful mankind's actions can stoop

Lord, we are grieving
Grieving for the loss of lives with so much love and energy still to give
Grieving for the man and woman and child who we will never be able to hold again
Grieving for our history that is as sad and twisted as this

Lord we are confused
Confused at why this should happen
Confused about how this should happen to the innocent
Confused about where you and faith enter into these events

Lord we have been angry
Angry at why we allowed our family and friends to go shopping
Angry at how evil people could rip our world asunder
Angry that you allowed it to happen

Lord we are seeking
Seeking some kind of feeble consolation in the midst of our deluge of tears
Seeking some kind of hope that good might come from this evil
Seeking your Spirit whom Jesus called a Comforter to whisper into our maddening silence

Lord we are squinting for faith
Faith that the majority might have some kind of a say in the future
Faith that love will end our hate, good will end our evil and grace will touch our broken hearts
Faith in a God who is as angry as we are and who is reaching out his hand to us.

Lord we are remembering
Remembering those who today can no longer be shocked, grieve, be angry, be confused, seek or squint for faith
Remembering that you watched as your son covered in blood, died at the futile whim of injustice
Remembering that that very death is the only thing that we can grope in the dark for in a week like this.

Lord we have planted our loved ones deep in the bloody earth of Ireland this week
We have watered them with our tears
Lord may you allow them to be seeds of a love that will grow into our peace.

Lord remember us. 

WHEN A WIND COMES OUT OF NOWHERE...

We have many little hiccups leading up to our 2019 Fitzroy team to Uganda. When we boarded in Dublin for Addis Ababa and the connecting flight to Entebbe, I uttered the famous last words, "Nothing to think about now for 10 hours..." The flight was to touch down briefly in Madrid but a storm sent us off to spend a few very dull hours on the runway in Barcelona before flying back to Madrid. We were now 8 hours overdue and missing our Entebbe connection. This is my sobering meditation on such a day...

 

You can have your destination planned

And know exactly how you are getting there

Dates and times all on your ticket

“Nothing more to think about until you arrive”

Famous last words

Like certainty, 

Or ‘nothing can go wrong’

And “we have it under control”.

 

“Sometimes a wind comes out of nowhere

And knocks you off your feet”

As Bruce Cockburn sings it

It can send you off course

Divert you to somewhere off your map

Towards worry

Anger

Frustration 

And weariness.

 

That wind and where it blows you

Cannot be eradicated

Or erased

God will not shift the weather patterns of the world

For your own self indulgence

Life is not the wind that blows

But how we respond when it does.

 

“Worry,” said the Master

“Adds nothing to your circumstances but worry”

“Surmise,” he went on,

“The Uganda Cranes as the fly

Or the sunflowers as the decorate a field

No toiling or spinning

But utterly beautiful.”

“Trust,” he teaches

“Brings a peace beyond understanding”

 

The breeze of the Spirit

Where it blows, no one knows

And so it is with all of those born of the Spirit of God 

Certainty gives way

To faith

And faith was the lesson of today.

GO, BE GRACE

(written for a post communion sending liturgy, in Fitzroy) 

 

Go, be grace

In a graceless world

Be grace to those whose labels

Exile them from belonging

Be grace to those whose failures

Have them losers in the winners’ enclosure

Be grace to those pushed and pulled by Empire

Until they lost the grace within themselves

Be grace to those who don’t think like you

They are not bad people, just wrong

(Or maybe we are!)

Be grace to those who have hurt you

Love them, pray for them, bless them

Go, be grace

In a graceless world!

 

Go, be grace

Like Jesus

Who humbled himself

Became meek

Who mourned focus

And hungered and thirsted for justice for all

Go, be grace

Like a loser

Cursed on a tree

Dying to power

Then rising, to be grace

From the right hand of the throne of mercy

As God gifted us a lavish and ridiculous grace

Go, be grace

In a graceless world.

SHIFT THE FOCUS

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From your own efforts to gather more

To the birds who have enough

From your own attempts to look good

To the roses in their springtime magnificence

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From the feeble efforts to change who we are

To opening up to what God’s grace longs to make us

From waiting until we are good enough for God

To having his strength made perfect in our weakness

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From the selfishness of being stuck in a moment

To the usefulness of living for the eternal

From the slavery of the things that we see

To the freedom of living in the Spirit unseen

 

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS

From the love we are craving to get

To the mercy we are zealous to give

From a holiness that feeds our self righteousness

To a Godliness that feeds the world

LORD SHIFT OUR FOCUS.

 

MATTHEW 6: 30-34

 “If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don’t you think he’ll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I’m trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God’s giving. People who don’t know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

 “Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

 

THE ANNE LAMOTT KNOWING LITURGY

"I live for Sundays. It's like going to the spiritual gas station to fill up on fuel and clean the dirty windshield and mirrors. I usually show up nuts, self obsessed and vaguely agitated and I am at once reminded not of who I am but whose I am."

                     - Anne Lamott

"My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all^[c]; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand."

                    - John 10: 27-29

 

Come, in your going nuts

Come, in your self obsession

Come, in your vague agitation

Come and be known

Come and be open to be known

Come and hide nothing

Come and beg to be exposed

Come and be known

Come to be deeply known

Come, so as to be known into healing

Come, so as to be known into purity of who you are

Come, so as to be known into the totality of love

Come to the covenant

Come to the promise

Come to the sacrament

Come to the Good Shepherd, who laid down his life for the sheep.

 

Go, as the known, to know

Go, as the known, to bring others to be known

Go, as the known,

To seek the unknown who run, hide, deny, compensate, self harm

Go, as the known, to know.

 

 

BARBARA DASS'S PRAYER on FITZROY'S BBC RADIO ULSTER MORNING SERVICE

READING: Isaiah 33:7-9 (NIV)

Look, their brave men cry aloud in the streets;

    the envoys of peace weep bitterly.

 

The highways are deserted,

    no travelers are on the roads.

The treaty is broken,

    its witnesses are despised,

    no one is respected.

 

The land dries up and wastes away,

    Lebanon is ashamed and withers;

Sharon is like the Arabah,

    and Bashan and Carmel drop their leaves.

 

PRAYER

 

Sovereign LORD!

 

You handcrafted our beloved Ireland - the land we walk and breathe in.

You sculpted its mountains, cliffs and drumlins.

You carved the courses of its springs and rivers.

You clothed the land in its flora and fauna.

You were here in Ireland when your Son walked to the Cross.

Your face was upon us…your attentiveness never waning.

A Mother Hen gathering us under your outstretched wings,

Determined to save us all!

 

Praise God Almighty!

 

Look!

 

Listen!

 

Women clothed in mourning;

Tough men weep openly,

Peace-making diplomats in bitter tears,

Belfast’s a ghost town,

Not a soul in its entries or doorways.

 

Lord have mercy!

 

The peace treaty is broken.

Its conditions violated.

Its signers reviled.

 

Christ have mercy!

 

The very ground under our feet mourns;

The Belfast Hills hang their heads,

The Western Bog Meadows polluted and clogged,

The Eastern Greenways weed-choked,

The Belvoir Forest bare-branched.

 

Lord have mercy!

 

Heal our brokenness,

Cure our blindness,

Open our minds and hearts to you Lord!

 

Christ have mercy!

 

Create a readiness in our hearts,

So that our ears may hear and understand,

So that our eyes may see and perceive,

The resounding presence of Christ’s Kingdom of Shalom in our land!

 

Shalom walked into every alleyway and street.

Shalom declared in the corners and courtyards.

Shalom played in the parks and parklands.

Shalom stepped over thresholds into homes.

Shalom danced on the hilltops.

 

May it be so! It will be so!

It is so now!

Praise the Lord!

 

Amen!

COME, HOWEVER YOU ARE - THE DAMIEN RICE COMMUNION

 

My mate Doug pointed it out. I had Damien Rice’s album My Favourite Fantasy but the album had made such little impression that I had missed track 7, Trusty and True. 

Doug showed me this Youtube link with the choir Dekoor Close Harmony. How deeply spiritual, it sounds. Almost liturgical. 

I searched for a Damien Rice explanation. Was he thinking in any way of religious imagery? The only story I got was rather rude, yet there was wisdom in the lewdness. From the rude it turned on a seismic pin head to new starts and forgiveness. It’s almost for a Confessional.

It begins with our aim to be true that somehow never holds:

 

We've wanted to be trusty and true

But feathers fell from our wings

And we've wanted to be worthy of you

But weather rained on our dreams

 

It is almost what the apostle Paul wrote in Romans 7 - For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 

 

Rice goes on:

 

'Cause we never wanted to be lusty or lewd

Nor tethered to prudish strings

And we never wanted to be jealously tuned

Nor withered into ugly things

 

For the flawed human there is nothing for it but confession, forgiveness and a new beginning. That’s where Rice goes. Though we never know who we are coming to, we are invited to come…. and to come as we are: -

 

And if all that you are

Is not all you desire,

 

Then, come

Come, let yourself be wrong

Come, it's already begun

Come, come alone

Come with fear, come with love

Come however you are

Just come, come alone

Come with friends, come with foes

Come however you are

 

Just come, come alone

Come with me, then let go

Come however you are

Just come, come alone

Come so carefully closed

Come however you are

Just come

 

It is beautiful. Utterly beautiful. Welcoming. Forgiving. Grace filled.

Doug suggested using it as a communion piece. Fitzroy are always up for the challenge. Eventually we used it. Dave Thompson with some help from Chris Blake and George Sproule. We might add a choir soon. It was sung as the congregation came forward and gathered the cross to receive the bread and wine. It worked a treat!

PRAYER ON 21st ANNIVERSARY OF GOOD FRIDAY AGREEMENT

Lord,

The Good Friday Agreement,

 

We give you thanks

For the prayers, played by so many for so many years, finally answered

For the miracle grace time peace we have enjoyed for 21 years

We give you thanks that we know longer fear bombs or bullets

Or morning news headlines

We thank you for all of those people alive today because of our peace

We thank you for a city thriving with night life

With development, opportunities, art, imagination and hopefulness

We thank you that we do not remember being searched every time we went in

We thank you for a generation who has no idea what this prayer is about

We thank you for the new relationships

On the ground

Between Churches

And even tenuously, as it is, among politicians

We thank you Lord for the Good Friday Agreement and the peace makers who made it and continue to make it possible.

 

Lord we ask for your forgiveness

When we have frustrated the potential of the Agreement

With those we have voted for

When we have put the new wine of peace into old wineskins

When we have lived the past in the present and curtailed the future

When we have continued to live in our apartheid area rather than love neighbour

And beyond that followed your clarion call to love our enemies

Lord we celebrate the Good Friday Agreement at a time of void and impasse

We feel frustrated and sometimes angry

Lord forgive us for the part we play in frustrating your miracle Grace time peace.

 

Lord give us resilience

In the uncertainty of Stormont, Brexit, hard borders and back stops

May these steps backward not derail the leap forward

Help us to see that coming out of conflict is long and hard

Give us patience with each other

Give us patience with the politicians 

In the delicate task that they have of leading the communities that for them

To come with them on the journey of bringing well being to everyone

And help us to make our contribution in bringing hurting, hating communities together in peace

Lord, when we take the inevitable step back

Help us to hear Ignatius advice

To run towards your doubts

May we not run from the challenge 

But constantly recommit 

Help us to try and try and try again

Lord we have no choice but to be involved in the long haul of trying

You call us to peace making

You give us a ministry of reconciliation

Your gift of grace in Jesus

And his death and resurrection are your example

That we should follow

Particularly in a divided, sectarian, violent place very like the one he taught us from

So, Lord give us your resilience and mercy and wisdom

To be involved in your miracle grace time peace

As the Father sent Jesus into a work of reconciliation

Send us 

To bring your shalom

On the streets of Northern Ireland 

As they are in heaven

In the name of the Prince of Peace we pray

AMEN.

MY PRAYERS ON THE SUNDAY WE REMEMBERED CHRISTCHURCH, MOZAMBIQUE, ZIMBABWE, MALAWI & COOKSTOWN

My prayer in Fitzroy, the week after the Mosque Massacre Christchurch, in the week of a cyclone in Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, just see days after the Hotel Crush in Cookstown.Brexit goes on in chaos too...

The Lectionary reading was remarkably Luke 13: 1-9 where Jesus deals with a violent massacre and a crushing by Siloam Tower. Immediately afterI prayed this the band played Bono and Daniel Lanois's Falling At Your Feet. Beautiful! 

 

Our God

It has been a wordless week

We have gasped

And sighed

And cried

At what we have lived through

We have been speechless

Trying to describe the distraught

Of Christchurch

Of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi

Of Cookstown

Of Carlingford

Of Cushendall

Of Westminster

Lord, people at worship gunned down

People in their homes washed away

Teenagers going out to a St Patrick’s Day party, not coming home to their parents

Ruth and Nicola lost to their families

And a Parliament in chaos and confusion and crisis

Lord, it is almost too much

 

So, Creator God

We find inspiration from our Muslim neighbours

And prostate ourselves before you

Falling at your feet

To find our place in your order of things

To be realigned

To be put back in-sync

To your place

Your world

And our place in it.

 

Lord, Jesus called the Spirit a Comforter

So, may the Spirit break into Christchurch

Southern Africa

Co Tyrone

May your compassion made flesh in those neighbourhoods.

 

And Lord falling at your feet

We give ourselves

To whatever we can do 

Out there

But more urgently what we can do right here

In our homes

On our streets

In our places of work and leisure and socialising

Lord urgently call us afresh

And energise your presence within us

That we might be particles of your light 

Shining across Belfast and beyond

Lord, into our old broken world

Shine the new healing of your Kingdom.

 

And Lord, start with me

Give my soul a paradigm shift

That I might see this last week

And place in it.

May that might make everything different

In how I live this week

May we never abuse your grace  

To feed our own self righteousness

But use your grace 

To feed and clothe and comfort the world’s deepest needs.

Lord, I am falling at your feet.

Amen

 

 

STOCKI'S "CARRY IT GENTLY" PRAYER

Carrying our faith needs the Jesus posture... a posture of gentleness... in its courageous conviction...

 

God, give us a confidence in you

But let grace keep us from arrogance

God, give us a strength of conviction

But let us share it humbly

God may we believe courageously

But help us carry it gently

Lord, may we go forward with vision

But help us to be careful that we do not abuse your grace to feed our own self righteousness

But use your grace to feed the world’s deepest needs.

AMEN