SOUL SURMISE

PRAYING FOR ARLENE, MICHELLE ETC IN CLONARD... AT THE WEEK OF PRAYER FOR CHRISTIAN UNITY

God

We thank you for the week of prayer for Christian unity

We thank you for this attempt to respond to the prayer of Jesus that we would all be one

Forgive us when we have been divided

Forgive us when we been arrogant 

And that arrogance has turned to bigotry.

Forgive us for our complicity in a divided society

And the pain that we have caused one another.

 

God we thank you that you promise that when we confess our sins that you are faithful and just to forgive us of our sins

And purify us from all our unrighteousness

Lord purify us in our relationships with one another.

 

God, we thank you for the work of Fr Gerry Reynolds and Rev Ken Newell

We thank you for those at Clonard and in Fitzroy

Who took risks

Who crossed the boundaries

Who learned to love their neighbours as themselves

We thank you for that vision and courage

We thank you that we see the benefits of Fr Gerry and Rev Ken’s work even here this morning

 

God we pray that they might continue to be our role models

That their work would continue to inspire us

We pray for the Reconciliation ministry of Clonard 

And as part of that the Clonard Fitzroy Fellowship

Lord by your Holy Spirit give vision and guidance to show fresh ways to continue that work

 

God we pray for the Clonard pilgrims

We thank you for their worshipping with us in Fitzroy

And all that that means to us

We thank you for the relationships that they have formed across our city and beyond

Create real Christian fellowship in the congregations they visit

Melt hard hearts and create unity in Christ.

 

God we pray for the 4 Corners Festival.

We thank you for the involvement of Clonard and Fitzroy in this initiative

We pray for the programme that starts next Friday

We pray for the speakers and singers and poets

We pray that the events of this year’s festival

Would contribute to the building of a city of grace

We pray for those who come along.

Lord change hearts

Redeem attitudes

And transform relationships across all 4 corners of our city

And Lord begin with me

 

Finally Lord we pray for our Local Assembly

For all of our MLAs and particularly our ministers.

For Arlene Foster

For Michelle O’Neill

For Naomi Long

For Edwin Poots

For Deirdre Hargey

For Diane Dodds

For Peter Weir

For Connor Murphy

For Robin Swann

And for Nichola Mallon

 

Equip them all to do their jobs

Help them overcome the hurdles

Envision them to do their best for all of us

God we pray Stormont would work

For every corner of Belfast

And every corner of the north

Jeremiah asked us to pray for the peace and prosperity of the city

Lord may it be so

For the common good of all of us

God build a city of grace

In Jesus name

Amen

STOCKMAN'S CHAPEL TALK IN TAYLOR UNIVERSITY, 11.11.19

In November 2019 I had the privilege of speaking at Chapel in Taylor University, Uplands, Indiana.

It is a University I had been to many times and love very much. 

This year I brought a few things together in my talk - BEING WITH OUR ENEMIES. Basing it in Luke 6 where Jesus asks us to love our enemies, I unpacked a 10 week series I had preached in Fitzroy on Sam Wells' idea of BEING WITH. What is it like to be with our enemies? I then used 4 Corners Festival as an example of how we are trying to be with.

In the end this is a very good way to hear a lot of what I preached at the end of 2019 crammed into 25 minutes... follow the link below...

WATCH MY CHAPEL TALK AT TAYLOR UNIVERSITY HERE

(with thanks to Sam Wells and Jim Wallis, from whose work I got my American illustration)

 

COULD GRAHAM MAULE'S FUNERAL PREACH INTO STORMONT'S RESURRECTION

I cannot get away from the powerful coincidence. Could a burial in Scotland have a prophetic message for a resurrection in Northern Ireland.

On the day that the Northern Ireland’s Local Assembly got back together after three years, Graham Maule was being buried in Craufordland Woods, near Glasgow. 

Graham was an architect, sculptor, art tutor and best known to many of us as a hymn writer. Along with John Bell, his fellow Iona Community member, Graham wrote hundreds of hymns and arranged many more. If you have ever sung Marching In the Light Of God, then Graham Maule touched your life.

I did not have enough time in Graham’s company but those moments that I did whether in Glasgow or at Greenbelt I found him a real gentleman. He had a relational warmth. He oozed grace. He embodied a holiness defused of any self righteousness. He enjoyed whiskey and curry and justice and compassion and liturgy. I have grieved since his passing on December 29th and prayed for my friends who who will miss him most.

His funeral though was a revelation, particularly in the juxtaposition of it with a restoration of the Stormont Assembly.

Graham’s Burial Liturgy which was lengthy included three languages. 

The New Testament reading from 1 Corinthians 15 was taken from William Lorimer’s Bible translation in Scots. The “I am tae mind ye o the Gospel at I preached tae ye” would be well appreciated in Ulster Scots corners of Northern Ireland. 

Later in the service Mhairi Lawson sang in Gaelic, Taladh Criosta - The Christ Child Lullaby. Those promoting Irish would be delighted with that.

This was not a contrived peace service where the planning committee sought to compromise and make sure that everybody was represented.

This was an amalgam of one man’s life, representing his loves that happened to be, for a visual artist who also made a mark with words, the three languages that naturally blended across his worship and vocation. 

Our politicians at Stormont, how I wish you could have experienced that natural blend. All of us on this island are influenced in our language and culture by our close neighbours in Scotland. Whether it is our sense of Celtic-ness or our sense of being Ulster Scots, we know that Scotland is deep in our DNA.

It begs the question. Why could languages so beautifully weaved together in the celebration of one man’s life have been used to tear us apart?

When I hear my friend Mervyn Gibson speak about the politicising of the Irish Language, I can see what he means. I would have to suggest that Ulster Scots has been abused in similar ways.

BUT… both Irish and Ulster Scots are a fundamental part of ALL of us. I am sure that Nationalists in the Glens speak Ulster Scots daily and I am sure that there are Protestants who say that they live in Ballyhackamore (warning: DO NOT give them a literal translation).

I come from Galgorm, near Ballymena. It is from the Irish - Geal ghorm - that means sky/clear blue. Ballymena United wearing that colour might be linked. My Grandparents were the most fluent Ulster Scots speakers I knew. Right there in that village we find the same natural blend of languages that we find in Graham’s life.

So, I want to challenge Sinn Fein. Do not make exclusive something that belongs to all of us. Mervyn Gibson, please do not just casually, without any sort of struggle, throw away part of the identity of us all. You speak a lot about respecting identity but seem to dismiss this vital part of it way too easily.

On January 10th 2020 Northern Ireland got a new start. As the Local Assembly meets there will be many battles ahead. Language rights will continue to be contentious and will need to be solved. Could one way forward be to see the lessons shining like beacon from the funeral service of Graham Maule. Three languages blurred into a gifted wordsmith’s obituary. Can we not find a similar beauty in the identity of our wonderful and wounded place?

STORMONT IS BACK - MY PERSONAL RESPONSE

My phone pinged.

Then it rang.

Before I answered it I knew.

“So do we have a local government”?

“We do!”

“Yeah”

I punched the air

Like a goal

Oh not like that Agueroooo goal by any means

But a goal 

That seemed for us

Not against us.

My spirit lightened.

 

So politicians, I thank you.

 

Oh there will be those who will be cynical

Who will sneer at you

Who will be glass half empty 

Or even throwing it all over the table.

There will be those who will be negative

Who will concentrate on the last three years

Or drag up the negatives in the years before that.

 

I am refusing to look back

Yes, let us learn from it

But let us push forward

 

I am going to vote

Not by way of old nurtured intuitive colour codes 

Or in a reactionary opposite of that

No, I commit to deal with my sectarianism

And be alert to the danger of inverted sectarianism 

To vote for the best politician

The one who will work for the common good of all.

 

I will pray for you all

I will be here to help in any way I can

I will be on call to listen if you need me

I will be there to provoke even when you don’t want me

I will be bringing before you

A book that I believe in

A book that I believe to be the word of God

A book that even if you don’t believe it is the word of God

I believe can help us all

It has wisdom on new beginnings

It is strong in envisioning the future

It dreams of turning saracens into surgical equipment

It encourages the love of enemies

It is angry at injustice

It is compassionate towards the hungry, homeless and prisoner

It is good on humility

Self critique

And redemption.

 

So, thank you for this new dawn

We beg you to make sure that it not a false one

Do not take us back to the night

Lead us forward into a brighter day for all.

 

I commit myself 

To pray 

And live 

And contribute

To put my shoulder to the task

Of building a country of grace.

CONSIDERING CONSIDERING GRACE - PRESBYTERIANS AND THE TROUBLES

I have been critical of my denominations contribution to reconciliation both during the Troubles and in the years since the Good Friday Agreement. So, it surprised me that the first thing that I experienced reading Considering Grace was an utter respect for fellow Presbyterian ministers. 

This book is based on over 120 interviews conducted by Gladys Ganiel and Jamie Yohanis. The vast majority are with Presbyterians though they do cover also some who have left the Presbyterian Church and some critical friends.  

They are careful with their categories for interview - ministers, victims, security forces, emergency responders and politicians just some of them. A missing category is the post Good Friday Agreement generation. We need to hear what they think of the legacy we left them to grow up in.

The first chapter is ministers and they impacted me most. I suddenly realised that there were indeed three Irelands during the Troubles; the north, the south and the border. In those border areas ministers were burying members of their congregations murdered by the IRA on a regular basis. They were often first on the scene. They were often those who told loved ones the horrible news. Sometimes two or three from the one family were killed. Respect.

Moving from there to the stories of the victims and this is not at all an easy bedtime read. The victims reminded me how brutally awful our conflict was. Victims also give a range of opinions on forgiveness. I believe Jesus is clear on forgiveness but sensitivity to the deep hurt with which some have to practice it needs a careful and sensitive listening.

Right across the interviews the Church certainly made some positive contributions to a society being torn apart by bombs and bullets. The pastoral care of victims, security forces, first responders and health care workers was remarkable. 

However, the cataloguing of such a wide range of people also drags out much to critique. Again, respect to the Presbyterian Church in Ireland (PCI) to be prepared to open itself such criticism and hopefully listen to it.

A recurring theme, it seemed page after page, was the bullying influences of Rev Dr Ian Paisley on the denomination, making ministers frightened of reaching out to Catholic neighbours or be involved in peace making at all. Some involved in community work complained that they never met the local Presbyterian minister and others point out that there was a lot of sermonising about a lot of things apart from what was actually going on. 

Some clearly stated that there was “no theology of peace” and that any peace projects that PCI did do didn’t get enough time or funding. For any Church attempting to apply God’s word to their context this is an unbelievable neglect and blight.

Yet, as someone very involved in reconciliation I had to listen too. Some victims charged us with being “more interested in the ones who pulled the trigger than the ones who got the bullet”, that PCI “buried an awful lot of victims and its almost as if there’s a bit of amnesia about that”.

The book is an important document in a country where we are wrestling to deal with the legacy of the past that we very much live in today. Some in the book fear that there is a Republican re-writing of history. This has given a voice to a Presbyterian reading.

As someone who engages in discussion with Republicans as part of my reconciliation work, going as far as speaking at a Sinn Fein Ard Fheis, with my friend Fr Martin Magill, I would actually like to read a response and review of the book in Sinn Fein’s publication An Phoblacht. Republicans need to read and reflect on these stories.

I found it discouraging that so few books were printed for a denomination of 250,000. Thankfully we are into a second print. I would love to have had a copy through the letterbox of every Presbyterian in Ireland. It is vital we all read it and engage, learn from the best and worst of our denomination’s engagement, pastoral and prophetic, in the Troubles for the urgent work of reconciliation now.

This book cannot be just a process gone through. It cannot  be a feel good project that now sits on the shelf. That is what I fear happened to our Vision For Society Statement that is the end appendix of the book. This is a Biblically powerful statement of intent in our discipleship in a divided community. May its words become flesh and not just remain nice words. The devil would settle for that! 

 

WE, MEMBERS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN IRELAND, 

saved by grace
and called by God to grace-filled relationships, 

in the power of the Holy Spirit
as ambassadors of Christ’s Kingdom
in a broken and divided world;

BELIEVE that the Good News of Jesus Christ challenges and equips us
 to develop radically new attitudes and relationships with our neighbours throughout the whole of Ireland.

WE CONFESS our failure
 to live as Biblically faithful Christian peacebuilders and to promote the counter culture of Jesus
in a society where cultures clash.

ACCORDINGLY, WE AFFIRM Christian peacebuilding to be part of Christian discipleship
and reassert the Church’s calling
 to pursue a peaceful and just society in our day

WE SEEK a more reconciled community at peace with each other,
where friend and foe,
 working together for the common good, can experience healing and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Considering Grace in Story And Song at this year's 4 Corners Festival will have readings from the book, as well as a response from Seamus Mallon (a critical friend in the book) and songs from Dave Thompson. 

Feb 6th at 7.30pm, St John’s Parish Church, 444 Falls Road, Belfast, BT12 6EW

book on the website https://4cornersfestival.com

FR MARTIN'S SERMON AT LYRA MCKEE'S FUNERAL

There is little doubt that the murder of Lyra McKee was the most significant event in Northern Ireland in 2019. Lyra was a symbol of our new hope; a generation after the Troubles, taking us somewhere new.

Those shots in Derry/Londonderry were an assault on that hope. It was like we all got hit but only Lyra died. It was tragic not only for her partner and her family but all of us.

Then there was that sermon. Or that line in that sermon. My good friend Fr Martin Magill seizing the moment. Actually not being aware that a moment in his sermon was going to be seized. I had read that line the night before, when he asked some of us to go over the script. I didn't see it coming. Nor did he. 

He commended the politicians for responding together in the Creggan. That was Martin. Encourage them. Spark something. Then that pause... There was no pause in the script that I read off the page. BUT that pause was the power to come...

"I am however left with a question: ‘Why in God’s name does it take the death of a 29 year old woman with her whole life in front of her to get us to this point?’"

In the middle of a paragraph it seemed harmless enough but here in St. Anne's Cathedral in the high emotion of a funeral with all the political leaders from across two nations. Something went off. I still do not know where. A clap. Then two. Then hundreds. People on their feet. A cathedral on its feet. A country on its feet.

I was watching in Ballycastle and I was fist pumping the sky, "Go Martin. Get in there!" I was his biggest fan now (I might have been for a while) and tears welled up. 

Meanwhile Martin is trying to find his place. As surprised as everyone by this impact. A moment of God. I have no doubt. A moment of frustration from a country without a government for over two years. I am certain. A moment of hope that maybe the people on the ground could send a message to their politicians. They did!

I was so excited. I wanted to speak to Martin. Eventually he phoned. He handed the phone to Anna Burns who he had met in the crowd. I loved Milkman. Meeting a hero is one thing. Being on a phone that she is on the other end of is another. I froze. She froze. "Loved your book". "Thanks." "Bye".

I asked Martin how the pop star was. He didn't understand. He understood soon enough. I watched the wake of the wave ripple out across the world. He was in the wave and didn't see. Until the TV cameras came. Martin is not one for the headlines. He rang everyday. For some grounding. He was a pop star!

In those days, interview after interview, Martin was immense. He handled it so well. He said the right things at all the right times. My respect soared. A friend messaged me, "Your Robin just became Batman!" I was proud as punch to be his Robin! It gave Martin a voice that he continues to use pastorally and prophetically. 

Martin will say that the politicians missed that moment. They did. They missed the message from the people. Again. They missed a message from Lyra's generation. Again. 

Yet, I do not believe the people did. Or Lyra's generation did. We need to keep that wave going up behind the politicians. Lyra's Crossroads I called it. May we take the right road. The road that Martin helped nudge us down.

 

The sky went black

On Good Friday morning

When the news headlines

Told us you were murdered

Shot dead, doing your deepest gladness

One of the Ceasefire children

Shot by one of the Ceasefire children

One looking forward

The other looking back

One bringing us together

The other tearing us apart

It was not a Good Friday.

 

In your case

It didn’t take until Sunday

For resurrection

We couldn’t wait, for fear of the worst

And your life couldn’t wait, so full of the best

In the same sentences that told your death

Your life bloomed and bulldozed through

The darkness hit your flesh

But it missed your light

A star that shines on

Brighter than ever

 

You were our hope

But though they tried to make you past tense

You are still our hope

People are now being inspired

To make judgements without being judgemental

To revere the past without worshiping it

To doggedly hold a bone of truth

In the gentlest of a grace soft mouth

 

Politicians, years without speaking

Standing side by side

With whispers

Suspiciously grace impregnated

A palpable hope of new life

The potent power of a new seed

Planted.

 

And in your craftiest trick of all

You got the Churches out of their cold war

At peace in the same building

Sharing your city with a better future

With all your friends and all their opinions

For you it was always about everyone

And everyone was there

Even those enemies

 

And your friend, Fr Martin Magill

Learning about Hufflepuff

And The Lost Boys

Drawing comparisons with Jesus blood shed

And Resurrection

He commends the politicians,

Who stood together in the Creggan

Then, preacher perfect… pauses… to ask a question

“Why in God’s name did it take the death of a 29 year old woman

With her whole life in front of her…”

The congregation finish the sentence

Like a jury’s condemnation

Applause

Yet not applause

More like Amens with hand claps

Rippling across the pews 

Then a standing ovation of "preach it"

It goes on

Like the sound of peace

Flowing up the hill to Stormont Buildings

 

 

The sound rings around Lyra McKee Crossroads

A landmark

Where a young woman’s gifted legacy

And a Kairos moment collide

Into Beatitudes

Of Transformation

We can see why you loved those words of Jesus

Meek,

Hungry for Justice

Peacemakers

Blessed

Like the future you lived

An alternative Ulster indeed!

TOXICITY FILLS THE AIR

God, toxicity fills the air of my city

Sectarian vitriol

On social media

Banners

Gable walls

Hatred is spewed

Dehumanising

Those who do not live with us

Think like us

Vote like us

And God when we smear your indelible image in others

We do not only hurt others

We break the heart of you

Creator who made us all, very good

And revealed the preciousness of all

By sacrificing your son for the world

God forgive.

 

And God,

Before we point fingers

In self righteous arrogance

Send your Spirit to search us

To see the toxic vitriol 

And ungodly divisions

Within your Church

Between Churches

Blasphemous schism

God forgive our intolerance

The impoverishment of our love

The absence of relationship building

That Jesus’ Gospel models

God forgive us.

 

God, start with me

Interrogate my soul

My skewed intentions

Towards those who are not like me

Investigate the Northern Irish DNA in my soul

Thran

Holier than thou infallibility

Devil’s speed to judge, exclude and damn

God, if words could kill

I would need a licence

For the bombastic belligerent sentences 

That I swear out

Cutting

Breaking

Injuring

God forgive.

 

God, be faithful and just to forgive

And then purify from all unrighteousness

Give empathy and compassion

Wisdom to deny self 

Courage to carry cross

To love our enemies, 

Do good to those who hate us,

Bless those who curse us

Pray for those who ill treat us

As Jesus asked

God, this is rebirth

This is repentance

This is the grace of God

That dilutes the toxic

In our society

In our Church

In our souls

God open our hearts

To bring it on. 

BEING WITH THE OTHER - JESUS MODEL, JESUS CALL & THE CHARACTER OF GOD

Two 4 Corners Festival quotations have struck a long chord with me. The first was at The New Irish Arts performance in Clonard Monastery in 2015. Taking a mainly evangelical Protestant group  onto the Falls Road for the first time is very 4 Corners Festival. That the them was the First World War, even more so! In that performance was a line, “Hatred is compromised by friendship”.

Then in 2019 we had Catholic Priest Fr Greg Boyle spoke in Skainos on the Newtownards Road about radical kinship. The responder to Fr Greg was PSNI Temporary Assistant Chief Constable, Tim Mairs. This was again poignant as we were just days after the murder of Ian Ogle just a few streets away. In Tim’s address he said, “It is hard to demonise someone you know”. 

Recently, in my BEING WITH sermon series in Fitzroy I was looking at BEING WITH THE OTHER. Friendship. Knowing someone. It is all about relationship. BEING WITH.

Jesus was WITH the OTHER. Whether a Samaritan woman who was OTHER in gender, politics and religion. Zacchaeus who was OTHER in being seen as a traitor, collecting taxes for the oppressing Roman Empire. A Roman centurion who Jesus described in some of the most radical of all his sentences, “Never have I seen such faith in all of Israel”. Oh my!

Jesus modelled BEING WITH THE OTHER. He also called us to it. For those of us who live in conflict zones Luke 6: 27-36 is a tough Gospel passage. Here Jesus calls us to “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you”. This is heavy stuff. Jesus most radical call perhaps. 

Yet, Jesus goes on to explain to us that this is the very stuff that his followers are about. To love those who love you? Anyone can do that. He then repeats the loving and the doing good before he brings this call back to the character of God - “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

When I sued to take University Chaplaincy team sto South Africa we met with a man called Rev Dr Spiwo Xapile. Spiwo used to say how we always seem to have excuses about feeding the poor or looking after the marginalised. Oh how that is the case with BEING WITH THE OTHER. We have so many excuses. Political, theological even. Yet, in this sermon on the plain Jesus leaves us no excuses.

BEING WITH THE OTHER, compromising hatred with friendship and eradicating the demonising of people by getting to know them. It is the model Jesus leaves us, the call that Jesus gives us and it all comes from the character of God. Let us quit the excuses!

HOW U2 RESPONDED TO THE OMAGH BOMB

Tears started running down my face. U2 tugged my emotions. I was in a lecture theatre at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. They had a screen that filled the entire wall of the theatre. The sound was great. I was showing U2’s Sunday Bloody Sunday from the U2 Go Home: Live From Slane Castle film. 

The obvious reason for the tears was that this was filmed in Ireland. I had only been away from home for a few days but there is nothing like seeing home in a faraway place to feel that yearning. 

Bono was playing all the moves. Sunday Bloody Sunday is, of course, all about Belfast and our Troubles. In 2001 when they played Slane Castle we had had three years since the Good Friday Agreement but politicians were still in talks as to whether they could make our peace deal work. 

Bono use the concert to encourage the “brave men” to compromise for peace. He then literally turned the song into a prayer. Bono walks out across the Elipse stage into the middle of this Irish audience and chants:

“Put your hands in the sky
Put your hands in the air
If you’re the praying kind
Make this song into a prayer
Put your hands in the sky
Put your hands in the air
If you’re the praying kind
Cos we’re not going back there”

On that big Calvin College screen, this was epic. This is about home. This prayerful hope sung across a vast crowd. The screams of “No more!” Wow!

Then, as if that wasn’t enough Bono turns the thoughts of this Irish crowd to the events of August 15th 1998. Just three years earlier the Real IRA, opposed to the IRA ceasefire, left a bomb in the centre of the market town of Omagh, on a Saturday afternoon. When it exploded 29 people lost their lives. The island went into shock and grief.

Slane Castle was U2’s first gig after Omagh. As Sunday Bloody Sunday ends Bono starts to name every victim, one at a time. With the band pumping out the beat of Sunday Bloody Sunday the emotion is palpable. Bono’s voice cracks.

Then with Bono sitting down the band move into a stripped back Wake Up Dead Man. Oh my. This is the most perfect location that that song ever had. Right there. After Sunday Bloody Sunday. After the names of the Omagh victims. The grief, the anger, the confusion, the grapple for faith. It has the catharsis of the blues, the protest of folk and the power of stadium rock. Tears… 

This wasn’t actually U2’s first public reference to Omagh. On November 20, 1998 RTE’s Late Late Show broadcast an Omagh Tribute Special that also included The Corrs, Bob Geldof and President Mary McAleese. 

U2 sang two songs on that show. North and South of the River, written along with Irish folk legend Christy Moore, came cross as almost a grown up Sunday Bloody Sunday. 

In this co-write there is an awareness that religion has led minds astray, and there is yearning for repentance, reconciliation and mutual understanding without any need for surrender, a reference to the clarion call of Ulster Protestants: “No Surrender!” The lines that became most powerful and poignant as U2 performed the song for the TV special were those that suggested the loneliness of hurting your own. There are also fragments of hope in the midst of the evil that love is not lost and has its place in the future.

The band also played All I Want Is You which, in this context, metamorphosed from a yearning for love, in a romantic sense, to a lament for those who lost loved ones in the bombing. It was again powerfully emotional.

Today, 21 years on and I will make a little playlist of these 4 songs, as I remember those lost in that horrific afternoon and indeed everyone who lost lives or limbs, or their sight, or mental health or whatever else as a result of our terrible Troubles.

COULD 4-WAY STOPS MAKE RECONCILIATION POSSIBLE AT STORMONT

Let me transport you to the roads of Vancouver in Canada. As another impatient Canadian driver honks his horn, and makes to shout obscenities through windscreens, I want to stop him and tell him how much I am looking forward to treating him as he is treating me when he is trying to find his way around Belfast! The roundabout at The Royal in rush hour will sort you out pal!

The psychological and social implications of cars are frightening. There we are in this little confined space with our entire worldview defined by what we are thinking and where we are going. How dare he turn left here and slow me down. Does she not know I am late? Are they not aware that I am trying to decipher a foreign city’s road signs on the wrong side of the road with two young children
screaming in my ear!?

In our cars, we are Kings and Queens and Presidents; almost dictators! We rule the world and everyone should do as we need them to do. There is no understanding of the crisis going on in the cars around us. There are no rights for those drivers. They need to serve my needs of getting to where I want to go. Anything short of that leads to finger gestures, bad language and road rage violence!

Transporting you back to our little piece of Ireland, we live like we are in cars without regard for the stories and histories around us, the hopes, fears and hurt of those who are travelling alongside us. Our world views are confined making us feel we are totally right and they are wrong if they are not serving our ambitions and dreams. If they get in the way of us reaching our destinations then they can be cut off.

Jesus calls for another way. His revolutionary plan for peace was forsaking our own egos to serve, forgive and love the guys in the other world view cars. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he said. He knew they would change the world for the good of everyone in every car.

Bizarrely the North Americans have such a place on their roads. At crazy places called 4-Way Stops, every driver is disarmed from his arrogant self seeking and in order for this road junction to function, everyone needs to be heard, given time, and served. You literally give up yourself to let others go.

When we observe such an alternative to normal road attitudes driving is made possible, easy and thoroughly pleasant. What about bringing the etiquette of 4-Way Stops into our attempts to get our local government up and running again? Could all sides change the mindset of their confined world views and give the other road users priority so that life would not continue to be chaotic and dysfunctional but possible for all. 

Come on Arlene and Michelle!