ALWAYS FITZROY - REFLECTING ON STOCKI'S 50s - AS HE REACHES 60
09/10/2021
(As I arrive at my 60th Birthday... here is the final part of a series of 6... as I try to express each decade in as few words as possible...)
Always Fitzroy
The last big gig
The only gig in town
Who else was welcoming my wild imaginings
Who else was as wild in theirs
So began in my 50th year
We took off
At the speed of a teenager
Clonard Novenas
Gospel According To…
Community Carol Services
Communion in Museums
Bruce Cockburn and Over The Rhine
Irish Language classes with some priest
Martin Magill
A couple of coffees with Martin
Something beyond us was happening
Listening
Ideas sharing
Critiquing
Pilgrims together
Contriving nothing
Marinating everything
Holy Spirit conjuring
The 4 Corners Festival
Ricky Ross
Gary Lightbody
Being interviewed on The View
Speaking at the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis
Touring the Mid-West of America
Being awarded the Civic Leadership Award
And sharing our 60th to raise money for Embrace NI
Watch for us on BBC Book Week!
Fitzroy 200
Imagining
Hall renovations
Contemporary space
For a contemporary ministry
Opening to the neighbourhood
And tithing for a school building
Not a financial transaction
But a relational partnership
With Fields Of Life
In Onialeku, Arua, Uganda
Taking a team for the Opening
Falling in love
With children
Staff
And community
Dancing together
Grieving together
Praying for each other
Mutual sharing
We were rich in shillings
They were rich in love, hope and resilience
A fence
A well
A girls’ toilet block
Text books
Sponsoring
Annual visits
So much love and hope and joy
Fabric
Craft stalls
Fundraising
Even a sabbatical
Writing From Killing Fields To Fields Of Life.
In Fitzroy
Learning to preach
Learning to pastor
Learning to listen to all
And not just hear one
Learning to slalom the genius and madness
Of congregations
Our gifts
Our foibles
Seeking 10:10 -
As much in John’s Gospel, as my birthday
Life in all its Fulness
Stumbling and tumbling after Jesus
Being particles of light across the city
God’s Kingdom on earth as in Belfast
Grace and imagination
Realigning our place in God’s order of things
Coronavirus
Discovering gifts
And deep gladnesses
That met this particular deep need
Online Church
Blog
Belfast Telegraph Column with Fr Martin
Pastoring by phone from the kitchen table
Wild imaginings
For a time such as this
Maybe when all is said and down
My best time
Not all easy
Everyone wanting you in their image
Everyone thinking they can do your job
Creating community you can’t be in
Feeling the isolation
Laying your insecurities on the line every Sunday
Limping with your inferiorities
And the family not called like you are
But still having to be called
Learning who you are
Learning who you are not
Learning that it will pass
Learning to trust
Being vulnerable enough to learn
The night before my licensing
In the Portstewart sand dunes
Alone with God in his vastness
Another Larry Norman song
“I am a servant getting ready for my part
There's been a change, a rearrangement in my heart
At last I'm learning, there's no returning once I start
To live's a privilege, to love is such an art
But I need your help to start
O please purify my heart, I am your servant”
Servant
Like Jesus
60 years in
And still tumbling and stumbling after
Seeking forgiveness
Grace
Equipping
For 10:10
In the next 10
As it has been in the last 60
God willing.