SOUL SURMISE

GALGORM - MY VILLAGE, ALL OVER THE TV

From as early as I remember every time we drove over the Sourhill Road in Ballymena my father would point down to one side of the road and say that the piece of land would make a great golf course.

Fifty years later and I am watching on Sky Sports as the Irish Open is being played in those fields my father pointed out -  now Galgorm Castle Golf Club.

As far as I am concerned the Stockmans are from Galgorm. When my dad was very young he moved from a house across the road from what he prophesied as a golf course, to a thatched cottage in the middle of Galgorm village. The cottage was renovated around 1710 probably for the staff of the nearby Castle where the golf course now is.

Glagorm was tiny then though houses and an industrial estate have since caused the village to be too narrow for all the traffic. My first home was in a housing estate just behind the cottage in Maine Park. I lived there until I was 7 and after that spent all school holidays in my Grandparents cottage in the village. The cottage is no longer ours but my uncle still lives in the house he built beside it. Another aunt and uncle live in Maine Park. 

The Castle grounds loomed large in my childhood. My aunt Jean worked in the big Castle and we used to stop at the gates regularly because they had a vending machine that dispensed eggs. Looking back, that was pretty ahead of its time for rural Northern Ireland in the early 60s.

My dad would have stories about the Castle and he certainly played in the trees that Padraig Harrington hit a few shots into today as well as the river. I was too young and have only one vague memory of me and my mates only climbing the fence.

I never imagined that a world class sporting event would come to our wee village. To hear the commentators wax lyrical about the River Maine and how beautiful a place it is. We never knew! We failed to appreciate it. Today it is on televisions across the world. 

My mum played a lot of golf at Galgorm Castle. We always said that she should take me for a round. We never managed it. She presented a Cup for a women’s match between Ballymena Golf Club where I grew up a member and Galgorm Castle. Oh how she would have loved this. My dad too, if he still had the mental capacity to grasp it.

My cousins are members at Galgorm. They too should be proud tonight. Not only did the course look amazing but no one tore it apart. Maybe of the weather improves over the weekend someone will but it looked a tough track today. 

Galgorm. That’s where I’m from. There aren’t many of us. I am proud.

FRESHER STUDENTS IN ISOLATION - HORRIFYING!

As a University Chaplain for 15 years (1994-2009) the second half of September still brings a tenderness to my heart. My role as Presbyterian Chaplain at Queen’s University, Belfast included the privilege of living in community with 88 students. I would never go back to it but they were glory days!

The first weekend, week and then month of term was always a pastorally intensive time. Eighteen year olds leaving home and the familiarity of family, friends, their school and hometown for what is very much the unknown was a huge challenge, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

As a Chaplaincy team we spent a lot of time, imagination and energy to make that rite of passage transition as easy, in minds, hearts and souls, as possible. As I look back from this last weekend’s perspective of leaving my own daughter to University we did a pretty good job.

Can I point out that almost all of my students were going home at the weekend. Yet, still this particular change in the life of late teens is so seismic that it comes with deep seated anxiety. Will we make friends? Will we like the subject? Add to that the break from home life and I would feel that those not struggling with starting as a fresher are the exceptions. We put many processes in place to help students through those first days. A month in and most of them were settled and soaring.

I have looked at this experience from the other side this past week, watching as my own daughter has managed courageously but emotionally her moving away to start International Development at the University of Reading. 

So, as a former Chaplain and a current father, I am reading the news with interest. 600 students in Glasgow University Halls Of Residence in isolation. Oh goodness me! We are also hearing that the government hasn’t ruled out keeping students in lockdown over Christmas! 

One of the methods to overcome the early homesickness is to have a trip home or a visit from friends or family or booking that flight or train home at Christmas. To tell freshers to self isolate and then add the threat of not being home at Christmas. This is horrifying. It is an unimaginable challenge. I am so fearful about the mental health reverberations. 

Back in April I sensed a battle coming down the Coronavirus road - health verses wealth. Boris Johnston and his government have had a tightrope walk between those things. Much as I sympathise with the idea that we need to keep our economy going. The nation needs a livelihood when we finally find ourselves at the other end of this. The balances have to weigh towards health. That health has not just to be to keep Covid-19 at bay but mental health as well.

The father in me was wary of Jasmine starting University in the middle of all of this but I so wanted her to go and enjoy it. The University Chaplain in me was even more wary. 

I sensed that the year ahead was fraught with bumps in the road, local restrictions and maybe lock downs. I was amazed that Universities didn’t do on-line teaching until at least Christmas. It seemed reasonably easy for me. 

The reasoning has to be mainly financial. Higher education has got no funding from government during the pandemic. Halls lying empty and without the income has implications. Universities don’t want to take the financial hit anymore than pubs and restaurants.

Yet, as students go into isolation across Scotland I have to wonder if the rent and income worth the potential mental trauma. Actually for those already in isolation this is not potential. It is actual. It is today. My heart goes out to them and my prayers. 

STOCKI SURMISING VAN MORRISON'S COVID-19 PROTEST SONGS

What a shame it would be if a man’s artistic legacy was lost in such a bizarre moment of misjudgement.

I was doing my Thought For The Day, live from a Reading hotel room if truth to be told, when the BBC’s Chris Buckler asked me to comment on Van Morrison’s new protest songs. I wondered what Van was protesting as he isn’t known for his political comment. When Chris said Covid 19 my heart sank.

You will probably have heard some of the the lines by now:

 

“No more lockdown 

No more government overreach

No more fascist bullies

Disturbing our peace.

 

No more taking of our freedom

And our God given rights 

Pretending it's for our safety

When it's really to enslave.”

 

Oh Van, Van, Van. 

I wasn’t so much angry that such a song might put lives at risk and give fuel to the conspiracy theory nutters who can so easily pass on the virus and be a bad example to the easily convinced. I am actually not sure that there are too many who will pay the much attention to Van’s protest.

As has happened, I knew that the vast majority would dismiss Van’s pontification for what it is, more than a little stupid. Never mind the questioning of the science around the Covid 19 virus, the very idea that this particular government of all governments would enslave us in lock down and the restrictions of social movement takes fantasy to levels that that other east Belfast writer CS Lewis’s never imagined. 

Boris Johnston and his cronies, in my opinion, are all about a reckless capitalism that will make them and their buddies richer no matter the consequences to the poor. What has happened in this pandemic has been an antithesis of their wishes and dreams. That Van has somehow missed that is a suggestion of someone cut off from the political realities around him.

That Van would suggest to 800 families in Northern Ireland who have lost loved ones that those deaths were imaginary or diss the the extraordinary heroics of the health service shows a lack of human empathy. 

Even that is not the saddest part for me. I have for some years been a Van the Man apologist. That he is moody and grumpy I have argued has been a lazy description of a man whose introverted personality clashed with a vocation that is lived out in an extroverted world. Give the man a break and some sympathy for what he has shared with us in spite of the psychological challenge it has been for him.

This week though I fear that Van’s legacy is in danger of being over shadowed by these mad songs. Van’s legacy is extraordinary. Astral Weeks, Moondance, Veedon Fleece right through to recent records is I would argue perhaps the most consistently brilliant catalogue of any of his peers. That is what I would long that Van Morrison is remembered for, not some crazy songs about bizarre theories. Van Morrison deserves respect not to be laughed at.

Then, my mind goes a little wild. Just a few weeks ago the world was celebrating Van’s 75th birthday. Hot Press brought out an amazing magazine to celebrate and they were putting nightly cover versions of his songs, by Irish artists, on Youtube. 

Did Van react to the adoration by attempting to deconstruct his own legend. Nothing surprises!

As I have said I do not fear that impact on the public’s response to Covid 19. I do though think that in the tricky terrain we are travelling through that we need every shoulder to the wheel. Coronavirus times are tough. We are all sacrificing freedoms to collectively beat this virus. Rather than begrudgers we need encouragers. We need artists who will write songs to give us the strength and resilience and hope to make our way through to better days.

Perhaps there is one positive. Another achievement in Van Morrison’s long career. Anyone who can get Stormont’s Health Minister Robin Swann featuring in Rolling Stone magazine… My goodness, who was betting on that in the wild predictions of what would happen in 2020! 

PRAYING WITH A TRAMP WHO WAS ACTUALLY A GREAT IRISH POET

(This was my Pause for Thought on Vanessa on BBC Radio Ulster on September 22, 2020. The theme was Lessons Learned)

 

It was 35 years ago and I was on the Stranraer to Larne ferry.  We found seats and were quickly joined at our table by a man who looked like a tramp. He was dishevelled from head to toe, a little dirty and the loudness of his voice hinted that he had been drinking.

He started swearing loudly about British rail and soon everyone sat around us was focused on our table. I eventually leaned in and asked if he would mind stopping the swearing.

“What would you know about swearing?” he asked. “I am a great Irish poet and I know the power of words. What would you know? Where did you go to University?” 

When I proudly said Queens University in Belfast he shouted something derogatory about it being a sausage factory. 

Then… he walked off throwing some books on the table. People started gathering round to see what the books were and indeed the books were his - Padraic Faicc was a great Irish poet.

The Bible talks about entertaining strangers well… because some have entertained angels without knowing it. It is a small lesson in a Bible full of the preciousness of every single human being. Everyone, even the dishevelled tramp whose language is a bit strong. 

After a few minutes Padraic came back to the table and eventually shared with us about his brokenness. Born in Belfast he grew up in the poverty of Hells Kitchen in New York city. He returned to Belfast in 1969, his wife left him and his best friend was a victim of the troubles. It played havoc with his nerves.

As we left the boat I had one of the great privileges of my life as a great Irish poet asked me to pray for him and all those issues of brokenness that you can read about in his poetry. 

That boat trip was maybe as good a seminar as I ever attended. Don’t judge a book by the cover or the poet by his clothes.

PEACE AT THE CORE OF GOD'S REDEMPTION PLAN - For International Peace Day

The stories of Jesus birth and the theology within is not just for Christmas. It is for all year round!

The peace that the angels sang about that first Christmas is not some Christina side show but at the core of Jesus incarnation and the purposes of God.

My favourite band Over The Rhine have been exemplary at the first. They make records like Blood Oranges In The Snow. It is not just another great Christmas album. It is another great album - period (as their fellow Americans would say!).

I love that record and it was indeed a song on it that opened up the importance of peace in God's redemption plan in ways I had not got the full impact of before. A few of the lines jumped out from the rest of the brilliance and torpedoed its way into my soul surmising. 

As they sang…

“I hope that we can still believe

The Christ child holds a gift for us

Are we able to receive

Peace on earth this Christmas”

… something clicked. It is not a new line. I have been living with this line most of my life. I cannot remember a time in my childhood when I didn’t hear it at Christmas time. I heard it for years before I even believed that what it was talking about was any kind of reality. For the last thirty years I have worked the phrase annually. One of my other favourite bands U2 even had a song called this and I have written about that song.

However, in this song that near over familiar line, “Peace on earth this Christmas”, struck a chord as loud as any Jimmy Page strum and as spiritually powerful as an Old Testament prophet or actually a New Testament angel on the night God came to earth! 

“Peace, Steve, Peace” is what my soul kept repeating. It is not about justice or vengeance, it is not about proving who was right or wrong. It is not about us and them and us winning. The point of this mission that God had in coming to earth was peace. That peace was not just for my soul. It was about peace on earth. Anyone following this Jesus whose birth is heralded in this angel’s song should be all about peace. 

This of course is not an out of the blue declaration of a God reaching for some Plan B or C. The Old Testament was all about this peace; shalom is how the Jewish people said it. Shalom was God’s intention in the law given, for the King’s to achieve and for the prophets to critique the lack of. A favourite verse on the subject that I have blogged often is Jeremiah 29:7 “And seek the peace of the city where I have caused you to be carried away captive, and pray to the Lord for it; for in its peace you will have peace.” (NKJV)

Those who claim to follow the baby born when the angels sang need to find that priority of peace. That God’s people would seek shalom wherever they were was a way of being God’s holy nation, a people set apart, different, in all the right ways, from the other nations. We need to not blend in to the world’s intuitive response to seek to be proven right, in control and avenging all who would come against us. We need to be about that ministry of reconciliation that God told us we would be about just as we are connected to God himself through that same ministry of his peace making.

On this International Peace Day, I commit afresh to the Gospel priority and commit to it with renewed courage, hope and all the grace that is intrinsic to the baby born and sadly often lacking on our streets, political buildings and even our churches - all the year round!

I PRAY… I WISH… (On A Daughter’s Leaving)

We are not who we are in the moment

We are always moving through the years

We are growing in what life throws us

In the laughter and the tears

 

I pray you’ll know the grace I believe

And forgive all the sins that I committed

That you’ll carry my love ever with you

And forget all the time that I omitted

I pray you’ll take our family values

And discern all our smudged fingerprints

You’ll realise deep gladness is a marathon

And never a fleeting happiness sprint

 

I pray that whatever breaks your heart

Will be a missive to fix your vision

When you throw sand back across your path

You’ll see the wonder of God given decisions

I pray you’ll find your life’s vocation

It will be a healer of this world’s pain

Go girl as far as you can go

And always find your way back home again.

 

I wish I could sneak inside your heart

And never have to say goodbye

To smile every time I watch you soar

And hold you every time you cry.

 

#proud #loveyoubabygirl

FITZROY SUNDAY SERVICE - 20.9.2020

Tomorrow in our Fitzroy Sunday Service (going live at 11am) we will be thinking about the whingers! We follow the children of Israel through the wilderness and as they whinge. I will use an amazing quotation by Miroslav Volf to help us ask some questions about our own fragile times and whether we are going to settle for just an improved Egypt or strive for the Promised Land? I'll also be using some Brian Zahnd wisdom to help us realise we might be in the best days for a long time to understand God's Word. We will ask what we believe, who we are and what we do. A variety of worship with a beautiful song performed by Erin Humphrey. 

LEAVING DAUGHTER TO UNIVERSITY - EMOTIONAL SONGS

So, we have had an exciting Road Trip to leave Jasmine off to University. The Stockies have always had music on such trips. It used to be the old CD for holidays. This time it was an 8 hour playlist made up of favourites by all 4 of us and Daddy adding all the old favourites like The Sawdoctors - “get the wasp off my sandwich”! 

This mix was a whole lot more poignant and deeply emotional. 

Jasmine herself chose a Maisie Peters (she’s always teaching her dad about new artists) song called The Place We Were Made and as I listened in the tedium of an English motorway I heard loud and clear what was in her ‘leaving home’ mind:

 

I know every streetlight

And maybe the colours will fade

This is the place we were made

By the late nights and the fires on the beach

Made by the small town secrets we'd keep

All that I know is

No matter how far away

This is the place we were made

 

Indeed!

Caitlin was intentional in her choices too. She carefully picked Belfast boy Ryan McMullan’s Letting Go For A Little While. His leaving song is from the child, not the parents, point of view as no doubt he goes off on tour: 

 

I know you love me, but now it's time to let me go

And I know you're sad but please don't cry

After all it's not goodbye

We're just letting go for a little while

 

Since the release of Deacon Blue’s great new record City Of Love Janice has been loving the song Intervals, surely about such moments in the Ross/McIntosh family life, and singing loudly the lines: 

 

When you grow up to be a star

Don't leave home for anything less than you are

 

For me another of this year’s top records has been tugging my heart strings, preparing for this seismic moment in our family life in general and Jasmine’s in particular. Jason Isbell is at the very early stages of watching his child grow. Letting You Go begins with him strapping his daughter into her baby car seat. At the end of this road trip I will be unclipping Jasmine’s for a last time, in some symbolic sense. Tears were creeping when this one came up on shuffle:

 

Being your daddy comes natural

The roses just know how to grow

It's easy to see that you'll get where you're going

But the hard part is letting you go

The hard part is letting you go

 

I am a very proud father this weekend. I am so inspired by how my daughters have turned out. Nothing like the plan I had for them, they are living a far better vocational plan of their own and prayerfully God's. As Jazzi starts International Development at Reading University I am excited for her and believe she is going to make her contribution. What an adventure! What a girl! BUT still… “the hard part is letting you go”… love you baby girl!

CHILDISH OR MATURITY IN KEEPING COVID 19 RULES?

(My Thought For The Day on Good Morning Ulster on September 18, 2020)

 

Back in the day… when one of my daughters was in P1. I caught her swinging on her chair at dinner so I said, "Caitlin, what would Mrs Kane say about you swinging on that chair?"

Quick as a flash, Caitlin says, “But Daddy… Mrs Kane isn’t here”

Her childish understanding of law was that if the person who laid the law down wasn’t there, you could do what you like. Her immaturity wasn’t able to understand that Mrs Kane had come up with the rule NOT to spoil her swinging fun but for her health and safety.

I think the same about double yellow lines. Some City planner didn’t rub his or her hands together and say I’ll spoil their fun by putting a few double yellows at the corner of Royal Avenue.

Laws of the road are no more to spoil our fun than Mrs Kane. Laws of the road are there so that Belfast as an entire city doesn’t come to a stand still because someone immaturely thinks the traffic wardens have gone home. Double Yellow lines are there to prevent chaos on our roads for benefit of all.

God didn’t make up laws to spoil our fun. They are there so that life doesn’t become chaotic and dangerous. The Bible also says that laws were there like a teacher of children. There until we mature and understand the chaos and health issues and avoid them out of love rather than law. 

That is why Jesus said all of the law could be fulfilled by doing doing two things - loving God and loving neighbour.

We need to see why rules are made and begin to live in the spirit of the law rather than the letter of it.

I am trying to look at these Covid 19 restrictions in that mature way. They are not to spoil my fun. 300 more people have died in 6 months by this virus than were killed in the worst year of the Troubles. 

Remember searches going into shops, being alert to where you went in the evenings and responding bomb alerts. 

So, I am going to see these strange Covid 19 rules as preventions of chaos and deaths. I am going to try and be more mature than my daughter in P1… remembering that the law of loving neighbour will keep them all… 

SUZANNE VEGA - AN EVENING OF NEW YORK SONGS AND STORIES

It is hard to believe that music buyers in the mid 80s had such artistic taste that Suzanne Vega could have been a superstar. Her eponymous debut and Solitude Standing came at a time when the songwriter was back and Marlena On the Wall, Small Blue Thing, Left of Centre, Luka and Tom’s Diner some of them as double 7” and 10” vinyl singles gave her a celebrity status she had never imagined.

Though the significant album and singles sales decreased and Vega claims she could stand outside the window of a record store with her album in the window without being recognised the quality of her art has never wained. Check out the songs on her Tales From The Realm of the Queen Of Pentacles. It is still wonderful writing.

A lazy criticism of her last decade might be that Vega has milked her early years with her four CD Close Up series of reworked songs and a live concert of her most popular record Solitude Standing. Here’s another live record stacked with the hits. 

However, Vega is never lazy with how she packages these older songs. This is very evident indeed in An Evening of New York Songs and Stories. One night at New York’s Cafe Carlyle with three players behind her Vega uses her songs almost like a play that takes us onto the very streets New York City. 

We’re inside a flat on Marlena On The Wall, we’re in the stairwell on Luka, we are on Ludlow Street itself and into playgrounds on Freeze Tag. Then there are her critiques on New York New York Is A Woman and New York Is My Destination, the latter from her album about Southern gothic novelist Carson McCullers.

She adds a few lovely touch introductions and this is a resounding successful evening made album. Vega at her best, throwing songs from every era of her career, making them all better by the specific gathering.