SOUL SURMISE

PEACEMAKING - GOD'S MANDATE - TOMORROW in FITZROY, RADIO 4 AND RADIO ULSTER - 23.1.22

photo: Sheila McNeill

 

On Week Of Prayer For Christian Unity Sunday I can be found in a few places in the morning.

I have already blogged about Fr Martin Magill and I doing the BBC Radio 4 Sunday Service (8.10am). We were asked on this particular Sunday to share our story. So we do. We share our journey but also the Biblical basis for what we believe we are called to do. 

I am very frustrated that being Radio 4 they have changed my music. I compromised as it was BUT felt that there is no better way to end prayers than Mary Gauthier's Mercy Now. Even that has been replaced... so I am afraid that this is my first and last Radio 4 Service. The music is as important to me as what I say so to have no creative control of that is so disappointing.

Anyway, that Service is also repeated on BBC Radio Ulster at 10.20am after David Campton, Mylie Brennan and Sue Divin talk about 4 Corners Festival .

Then at 11am I will be live in Fitzroy and streaming on Fitzroy TV.

At this service I will be preaching about Fitzroy's Peacemaking history and the Biblical basis for that. 

I would never call myself as an ecumenist though many of my critics would wonder why. I am far more interested in peace making, of reaching across our sectarian and denomination divides than I am about one massive global ecclesiological entity. I'd be suspicious of that.

I do believe though that we can learn from brothers and sisters, following Christ, in other denominations. I also think we need to be united in God's mission, in bringing God's Kingdom and in the Biblical mandate for peace making.

Fr Gerry Reynolds, so vital in Fitzroy's peace making work with Clonard Monastery, once said, "A divided Church has little or nothing to offer towards leading a divided people into the way of peace." How I agree. Prophetic.... but more of that in the morning! 

 

STOCKMAN AND FR MARTIN MAGILL DOING BBC RADIO 4 SUNDAY SERVICE

We were recording today. Sorry if I blow the cover. Fr Martin and I were putting together Sunday Service for BBC Radio 4. 

This week is The Week Of Prayer For Christian Unity and so Martin and I were sharing our journey of friendship. I will be honest. It wasn't easy. On two counts.

Firstly, the music. I am too old to be a Radio 1 man but I am certainly more Radio 2 than Radio 4. When it comes to music for a Radio 4 service... It took me a long number of hours, scouring across music streams but even without my usual freedom I hope I have brought a little taste. I am particularly delighted to have brought Mary Gauthier's Mercy Now to the prayers.

Secondly, Martin and I were playing tag team. we were attempting to be more conversational. I loved the imagination of it and Martin and I are used to conversational communication. However, it was trickier to actually do in front of the microphones. 

I hope we captured something. I hope you will listen. Sunday morning on BBC Radio 4 at 8.10am and then again on BBC Radio Ulster at 10.20am. See if our friendship can seep through. 

Thank you Shiela and Katherine for readings and prayers.

STOCKI ON THE RADIO FOR WEEKS AND WEEKS

 

I am always shyly pleased when someone asks if I am still on the radio or asks when I am next on Thought For The Day. When I am sitting in front of the microphone, for Pause for Thought all on my very own, or in these Covid days in my own front room I wonder if anyone is actually listening at all. So, when people ask, it is nice.

So, for those who ask, I am delighted to let you know that I will be on the radio almost once a week the whole way through to March!

The first batch is on BBC Radio Ulster. I will be doing Thought For The Day around 7.20am every Thursday morning in January - 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th.

Then after a week off I will start a series of four Wednesdays Pause For Thoughts on BBC Radio 2 at 5.45am - 9th, 16th, 23rd and March 2nd.

Thought For The Day and Pause For Thought have different approaches. Radio 2 give us a theme. The theme lasts all week and each contributor brings their own slant. Radio Ulster is a free for all. Choose your own theme.

The truth is that when I am doing Thought For The Day I so wish I had a theme to work within, to spark an idea. Then when I am on Pause For Thought I am thinking how difficult this theme is and how I wish it was free for all! Go figure?! Maybe there is a Thought For The Day in that.

Anyway, we start in the morning. A Bob Geldof thought on commitment and providence and how I have seen it work itself out in 4 Corners Festival.

If you are up early...

MARTIN & STEVE'S BIG 60TH BIRTHDAY FUND RAISE - THE TOTAL IS IN... and THANK YOU SO MUCH!

Fr Martin Magill and I are absolutely thrilled with todays big announcement in the Belfast Telegraph of the total donated to our BIG 60TH BIRTHDAY FUND RAISE FOR EMBRACE NI... drum roll... not £1000 or £3000, not even £5000 or £7000 BUT £9,050!!!!

We are over the moon and a little overwhelmed. I'll be honest. Although in our first press releases we spoke about reaching £1000 I would have been disappointed with anything less than £3,500 BUT to reach £9000 is way beyond our wildest dreams. 

When I think of life's achievements, as you do when you reach 60, this has to be way up there with some of the best of mine. To be able to use our birthdays to raise money for the emergency fund of Embrace NI at a time when we will be expecting Afghanistan Refugees to arrive with us here in Northern Ireland. I cannot imagine doing anything more constructive with a birthday or the rest of my life for that matter!

Can I first thank Martin for the idea. He suggested it to me in a phone call in late July and in August we had a long walk around Ballycastle Forest pondering how and who to? We did a lot of research and talked to a lot of people before we arrived at Embrace NI. 

We wanted what we thought would be our small contribution to make a difference. We wanted to fund raise for an organisation not getting lots of funding from elsewhere. We wanted it to have a Jesus centred ethos that we live by. We wanted it to be cross denominational. We wanted it to be making a real difference in our world, but locally. 

We thank Embrace for coming on board and their admin Tracey for giving us our weekly total as kept on rising.

We thank the local press. All the papers wrote articles. BBC Radio Ulster had us in. Claire McNeilly at the Belfast Telegraph gave us a lot of space and so we made sure that it was her who first declared the total in today's paper.

Most of all we want to thank everybody who contributed. As a result of the way the money was donated we cannot get access to your names. So it will have to be one big general thank you. So whoever you are and why ever you gave to a Catholic Priest and Presbyterian minister for our BIG 60th BIRTHDAY FUND RAISE... THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. 

Don't leave it there. Check out Embrace NI and watch how the money raised will be used to help refugees in these next days, months and years.

 

READ ABOUT EMBRACE NI DONATIONS

WHY FR MARTIN AND I CHOSE GUARD YOUR HEART ON BOOK WEEK

Fr Martin Magill and I were so excited to be asked to share a book that we both liked on BBC NI's Book Week series Read All About It.

We chose Sue Divin's book Guard Your Heart. 

I need to be honest and say that the real plugger of this book is my friend, and fellow PCI minister, Tony Davidson. I believe that Sue grew up in First Armagh where Tony is the minister. They did an event with Sue at the launch of the book and Tony was very keen to get me to read it.

It was one of my first holiday reads and I immediately felt that Fr Martin should read it. The main reason for that was the focus on the post Good Friday Agreement generation. Martin and I often consider the 18-25 age group and wonder if they are getting to make a contribution in their own future? Have we ignored them and how will that play out?

Sue Divin's book is about that... and a whole lot more besides. 

So, with both of us loving it, when the BBC invited us to contribute to Book Week, it was a no brainer which one we wanted to plug. We hope that it will raise the profile and sell a few books. Delighted that social media suggests that we already are. Then perhaps we can provoke a conversation about when the Aidans and Ionas can decide their own futures instead of us killing their future they way we did our past.

Also... Martin's last line... "it would make a great movie". Oh it would.

WATCH MARTIN AND I DISCUSS GUARD YOUR HEART HERE

 

 

MY 60th BIRTHDAY - WONDERFUL DAY

Much as I loved the surprise parties thrown for my 40th and 50th birthdays I had my family under strict orders that I didn't want big party for my 60th. 

It wasn't that I wanted to hide the fact that I was 60. Fr Martin Magill and I have heralded our landmark birthdays for a month, trying to raise money for Embrace NI. 

No, I have become more and more introverted through my 50s. I am not sure what to do with crowds pointing at me. Fitzroy singing “Happy Birthday’ before the service was lovely but my heart and brain go mush and I cannot fully appreciate the sentiment! 

I am happier at a good meal with a smaller number rather than short greetings with a couple of hundred.

So it was Holohans Pantry my very favourite restaurant, owned and run by good friends. We even had Eli and Bella as waiter and waitress. The food was amazing. I am a Seafood Boxty fanatic so joined by our good friends David and Rachel Quinney Mee I was in my happy place. I am always so relaxed in the Pantry.

Not that I got away without a surprise. Oh no! Dandering out at the end of the Fitzroy service someone mentioned an Ice Cream Van and I realised that they have done me again. Surprise!

Yet, a surprise that included the entire congregation, at least the 60% back after Covid, was a perfect way to celebrate. To see the children and young people enjoy a big 99 or a double one with lime sauce was a birthday thrill. Even a more mature member admitted to racing to get in line before the kids.

It was a real carnival and of course with an ice cream van and children it was not about me. I loved it. 

The whole day had started on BBC Radio Ulster. Fr Martin and I were rather honoured to have our landmark birthday recognised on Sunday Sequence and the lovely Audrey Carville reflecting on our lives.

It was good to give testimony to what has been a 10:10 ‘life in all its fulness’ and confessing no regrets but that at times I had hurt others. It was good to declare that we weren’t switching off and were getting excited about the future, particularly the 10th Anniversary of The 4 Corners Festival next February.

It was good to give a last plug to our Big 60th Birthday Fundraiser. To realise that we will have raised over £7000 for Embrace NI and the work that they do with refugees and migrants is the best present ever. Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed so generously! 

An hour after that interview I was standing in Fitzroy. It is my piece of pitch. As Kevin De Bruyne has that midfield space where he can play his genius, passing a football into the path of a team mate, so I have my lectern at the front of Fitzroy.

For twelve years that has been my space. In grief, in illness and in joy that little piece of real estate has been the place where I have found my deepest gladness, my reason to be on this planet.

To be there on 10:10. on the day of my 60th birthday, was a marvellous lining up of the calendar. To share the first communion in 18 months with my congregation was going to be special anyway but even more on this particular day. 

“You know who you are with bread and wine in your hand. You are a somebody.” A twist on TV’s Tales of the Unexpected. Who we are. And then… to close… Singing…

 

And all my life You have been faithful (oh)

And all my life You have been so, so good 

With every breath that I am able

Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God (yeah)

 

As we sang I felt a perfect moment. Me and God… aligned. I am thankful, so thankful for reaching 60. For having Janice beside me, throwing surprises. For daughters ploughing their deepest gladness. For an amazingly gifted and generous congregation that allows me to be me. For a wider society that invites me to share with it whether on radio, in newspaper or occasionally TV (Martin and I will be talking about a favourite book in BBC’s Book Week… coming up soon!).

Late evening, with a wee glass, Janice and a TV thriller. In the quiet, looking back. A most wonderful birthday.

60 years. What a 10:10 life. As Van once said, “It’s too late to stop now…” I am kind of glad it is over. The rest of my life starts here! Let’s go!

MARTIN & STEVE'S BIG 60TH BIRTHDAY FUNDRAISER - UPDATE!

photo: Bernie Brown

 

So, a wee recap. Fr Martin Magill was 60 on September 13th. I have no idea what it must be like to be his age but on October 10th I will. 

We decided to exploit the currency of big birthdays to raise some currency for Embrace NI. We set a target of £1000 which we had reached almost before Martin had finished his cake.

We doubled our target to £2000 and last week had to double it again. We are still 12 days from my birthday and we are delighted to say that we have broken through £4000. 

We need to thank everybody who has donated for your generosity. We are thrilled that our birthday's could do such good. 

We have chosen Embrace NI because it is interdenominational and helps us fulfil a clear Biblical mandate to take care of the refugee. Watching the news footage from Afghanistan reminds us that all over the world people are fleeing terrible wars, oppression and poverty to find a better, safer life for their family. We are of course aware that Jesus was a refugee too. 

We see the work Embrace does, not only in its emergency response to refugees but also their role of educating and resourcing the church as being so crucial. 

We set our target again to £5000 and encourage you, if you know Martin or myself, if you have benefitted in any way from our individual ministries or our work together to help us reach that target.

DONATE TO EMBRACE NI FOR MARTIN AND STEVE'S 60th 

READ ABOUT EMBRACE NI FUNDING HERE

MARTIN & STEVE'S BIG 60TH BIRTHDAY FUNDRAISER FOR EMBRACE NI

photo: Bernie Brown

 

"Old friends

Sat on a park bench like bookends..." (Paul Simon)

 

My good friend Fr Martin Magill was 60 back on September 13th. I honestly have no idea what it must be like to be his age! In less than three weeks I will. 

We have often found it so interesting, that though not meeting until we were almost 50, our birthdays are so close together. "1961 was a great year", Martin often says.

With such BIG birthdays coming up we thought that it would be a great idea to try and use such landmarks to raise money and profile for a small local NGO.

We chose Embrace NI for its work with refugees and asylum seekers.

We set a target of £1000. We met the target by the time Fr Martin had eaten all of his cake. We doubled our target last week and have passed it again. So today we are doubling it again and announcing a new target of £4000.

So forget sending us tokens and presents. Donate to Embrace NI and check out what they can do for you, your Church and your community.

We have had an amazing decade working together. We have helped create  Belfast’s 4 Corners Festival which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in February 2020. 

We pleaded for Jesus concept of grace to be used in peacemaking at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis. Both of us can be heard regularly on the radio, we have written together for various publications and we shared a Saturday column, for the first year of Coronavirus, in the Belfast Telegraph.

In 2016 we were overwhelmed when we were presented with the Community Relations Council’s Civic Leadership Award.

Martin is involved all kinds of amazing causes, particularly Stop Attacks and we all still remember his prophetic speech at Lyra McKee’s funeral, when I was fist pumping as I watched on TV.

We both feel that God has really blessed us in our friendship, our lives and vocations. We also feel that they are blessed enough with things and so the idea the BIG 60th Birthday Fundraise

We have chosen Embrace NI because it is interdenominational and helps us fulfil a clear Biblical mandate to take care of the refugee. Watching the news footage from Afghanistan reminds us that all over the world people are fleeing terrible wars, oppression and poverty to find a better, safer life for their family. We are of course aware that Jesus was a refugee too. 

We see the work Embrace does, not only in its emergency response to refugees but also their role of educating and resourcing the church as being so crucial. 

We therefore encourage you, if you know Martin, if you have benefitted in any way from our individual ministries or our work together to make a contribution to Embrace NI at the link below.

DONATE TO EMBRACE NI FOR MARTIN AND STEVE'S 60th 

READ ABOUT EMBRACE NI FUNDING HERE

 

photo: Bernie Brown

 

"Old friends

Sat on a park bench like bookends..." (Paul Simon)

 

My good friend Fr Martin Magill was 60 back on September 13th. I honestly have no idea what it must be like to be his age! In less than three weeks I will. 

We have often found it so interesting, that though not meeting until we were almost 50, our birthdays are so close together. "1961 was a great year", Martin often says.

With such BIG birthdays coming up we thought that it would be a great idea to try and use such landmarks to raise money and profile for a small local NGO.

We chose Embrace NI for its work with refugees and asylum seekers.

We set a target of £1000. We met the target by the time Fr Martin had eaten all of his cake. We doubled our target last week and have passed it again. So today we are doubling it again and announcing a new target of £4000.

So forget sending us tokens and presents. Donate to Embrace NI and check out what they can do for you, your Church and your community.

We have had an amazing decade working together. We have helped create  Belfast’s 4 Corners Festival which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in February 2020. 

We pleaded for Jesus concept of grace to be used in peacemaking at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis. Both of us can be heard regularly on the radio, we have written together for various publications and we shared a Saturday column, for the first year of Coronavirus, in the Belfast Telegraph.

In 2016 we were overwhelmed when we were presented with the Community Relations Council’s Civic Leadership Award.

Martin is involved all kinds of amazing causes, particularly Stop Attacks and we all still remember his prophetic speech at Lyra McKee’s funeral, when I was fist pumping as I watched on TV.

We both feel that God has really blessed us in our friendship, our lives and vocations. We also feel that they are blessed enough with things and so the idea the BIG 60th Birthday Fundraise

We have chosen Embrace NI because it is interdenominational and helps us fulfil a clear Biblical mandate to take care of the refugee. Watching the news footage from Afghanistan reminds us that all over the world people are fleeing terrible wars, oppression and poverty to find a better, safer life for their family. We are of course aware that Jesus was a refugee too. 

We see the work Embrace does, not only in its emergency response to refugees but also their role of educating and resourcing the church as being so crucial. 

We therefore encourage you, if you know Martin, if you have benefitted in any way from our individual ministries or our work together to make a contribution to Embrace NI at the link below.

DONATE TO EMBRACE NI FOR MARTIN AND STEVE'S 60th 

READ ABOUT EMBRACE NI FUNDING HERE

STEVE AND FATHER MARTIN'S 60th BIRTHDAY FUND RAISE FOR EMBRACE NI

photo: Bernie Brown

 

In a week’s time (September 13th) my dear friend and partner in reconciliation, Fr Martin Magill, will turn 60. For the next month, as many times as I can I will say “I have no idea what it must be like to be your age.” I have a mere 27 days until I will!

We have often found it so interesting, that though not meeting until we were almost 50, our birthdays are so close together. "1961 was a great year", Martin often says.

We have had an amazing decade working together. We have helped create  Belfast’s 4 Corners Festival which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in February 2020. 

We pleaded for Jesus concept of grace to be used in peacemaking at the Sinn Féin Ard Fheis. Both of us can be heard regularly on the radio, we have written together for various publications and we shared a Saturday column, for the first year of Coronavirus, in the Belfast Telegraph.

In 2016 we were overwhelmed when we were presented with the Community Relations Council’s Civic Leadership Award.

Martin is involved all kinds of amazing causes, particularly Stop Attacks and we all still remember his prophetic speech at Lyra McKee’s funeral, when I was fist pumping as I watched on TV.

We both feel that God has really blessed us in our friendship, our lives and vocations. We also feel that they are blessed enough with things. So, instead of gifts to celebrate our 60th birthdays we would love it if people would give a donation to Embrace NI.

We have chosen Embrace NI because it is interdenominational and helps us fulfil a clear Biblical mandate to take care of the refugee. Watching the news footage from Afghanistan reminds us that all over the world people are fleeing terrible wars, oppression and poverty to find a better, safer life for their family. We are of course aware that Jesus was a refugee too. 

We see the work Embrace does, not only in its emergency response to refugees but also their role of educating and resourcing the church as being so crucial. 

We therefore encourage you, if you know Mar, if you have benefitted in any way from our individual ministries or our work together to make a contribution to Embrace NI at the link below.

 

DONATE TO EMBRACE NI FOR MARTIN AND STEVE'S 60th 

READ ABOUT EMBRACE NI FUNDING HERE

STOCKMAN ON BBC RADIO 4 SOUL MUSIC - DAVID BOWIE: LIFE ON MARS

The question mark at the end of David Bowie Life On Mars? I saw it. Right there on that bright orange RCA label of the 7" vinyl single that I bought when I was 11 years old. It was so clear in my mind and answered the debate as to whether my friend Pat wanted Space Oddity or Life On Mars? played at his funeral. His wife Gloria said she was sure it was the one with the question mark. I knew immediately.

So, we played Life On Mars? and the question mark was the heart of my sermon. Questions of life. Questions in the Bible.

Little did I know that it would find me talking about Life On Mars? on Radio 4 this Saturday morning. It is part of the fantastic Soul Music series; a special edition for Bowie's birthday.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000r33c