SOUL SURMISE

RE-HUMANISING WOMEN - ENDING MISOGYNY

(my script for Thought For The Day on Good Morning Ulster on April 10th 2025...)

 

I remember an afternoon in a township in South Africa. We had been helping build houses with Habitat For Humanity and the day was done. We were waiting by the bus for our student teams to return from where they had been moving blocks, mixing cement, hammering roof beams… 

Suddenly I became aware of a kerfuffle. There was a noise getting louder and then I saw a gang of people pushing and prodding some young men. By the time they got to us, it was very loud, a little out of control. Then the police had arrived. 

Earlier in the day one of our team had been approached by some guys with a knife and asked for his sun glasses. This was the community bringing them to justice. The police got the men into a police car, almost to protect them and it was over…

It reminded me of the kerfuffle when religious leaders brought a woman in front of Jesus. There would have been the same tension in the air, noise as they shouted at the woman and Jesus. 

She had been caught in the act of adultery. She was due for a stoning. But where was the man? And what would Jesus do? They were trying to catch him out. In fact the woman was maybe used as a pawn in order that they might be able to accuse Jesus and get him crucified.

Jesus wrote on the ground and then asked the ones who were perfect to throw the first stone. He looked up and it was just him and the woman. Jesus who could have cast the stone instead forgives her and send her off to a new and different life.

What Jesus does here is re-humanise a woman de-humanised by her culture. She was so dehumanised that the religious could throw her at a stoning to get Jesus. Jesus saw the woman as precious and fully human. 

Since the start of Covid, 25 woman have been killed here in Northern Ireland. If you missed that in the morning haze. 25. And there are so many other types of abuse and discrimination happening to women in this society, even this morning.

Men, aren’t we at the root of this? We have to be better than this. We need to rid ourselves of every form of misogyny in every area of our society. We need to re-humanise every woman that we meet today. Make them equal, safe and set them free. 

PREACH IT, GARY LIGHTBODY

(My Thought For The day on Good Morning Ulster on April 3, 2025...)

 

I swept through Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody’s new book last week. It’s quite something. It reminded me that it was Campbell College teacher Mark McKee who opened young Gary’s mind to words through reading Seamus Heaney. Mr McKee deserves an honorary doctorate to be bestowed on him for all the goodness that he instigated.

Gary’s book is not much of a rock biog. Oh he tells some nice stories about first hearing Nirvana and wanting a guitar and how 15 years later he headlined a festival and Nirvana’s drummer Dave Grohl now front man with the Foo Fighters came out and gave him a hug on stage. Even more lovely is his story of Bono chatting to his dad at the Snow Patrol Ward Park gig in 2019. 

But so much of the book is actually about his father’s death and about grief. It is not short of spiritual reflection.

I was taken by Gary suggesting in all of this surmising that “There is a good death… in the end of anger, in the end of resentment, in the end of jealousy. Dying so one can live is the best kind of death.”

Preach it Gary I whispered as I read these words. He is articulating here what I am attempting to do most weeks in Church. Jesus talked about the thief who comes to steal and kill and destroy but that he had come to bring life in all its fulness. 

The apostle Paul wrote in his letters about putting things to death and then being made alive to good things. Patience, kindness, love…

I can only imagine how much better my life would be if I could get rid of all my anger, resentment and jealousy.  If I could deal with the  damage our culture does to us, all those experiences that winds my anger up, all the injustices that I sent and all the temptations to be like other people, all the stupid things I am jealous that other people have and I don’t.

Imagine a world where those things have been jettisoned from our politics and relationships, where here in our wee place we could put to death anger, resentment and jealousy and then live a new life beyond it. Preach it Gary indeed!

Good morning

SOMEWHERE I HAVE NOT BEEN...

(This was my Thought For The Day on Good Morning Ulster on March 27, 2025) 

 

One of my favourite bands Deacon Blue have a new record out this week. I am loving it. 

A couple of weeks ago I was at a Presbyterian ministers’ Retirement Conference. It was all confidential so it would be great of you could keep that to yourself. Though retirement is not immediately imminent, it was an incredibly useful couple of days for Janice and I.

It certainly made the opening lines of the Deacon Blue record resonate:

 

Bus driver, won't you take me

To the furthest place from here

To somewhere I've not been before?

 

The song is about The Great Western Road that old highway out of Glasgow to Loch Lomond, The highlands and beyond. Full of possibilities.

It had me thinking instantly of CS Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles celebrating 75 years this year. In the first book chronologically, The Magicians Nephew, Digory and Polly get into Narnia not through a wardrobe but by magic rings that brings them up out of a stagnant pool, just like the one down the back drive in Campbell College.

Arriving there Digory says, “There's not much point in finding a magic ring that lets you into other worlds if you're afraid to look at them when you've got there.”

I am now on stepping stones from Deacon Blue to CS Lewis to Jesus who said that he had come into the world to bring us life and life in all its fulness. 

What would the point be of God coming to earth, dying on a cross and being resurrected back to life, to herald a new kingdom, if we were too fearful to look at it when we got there!

So, as thoughts of retirement distract me I am also very attracted to it as if getting on that Deacon Blue bus or picking up those Magic rings. I have no less excitement for the exploration of my 60s and 70s as I had for my 20s, 40’s and 50’s. 

I still want that bus driver to take me to the furthest place, somewhere I have never been. Further up and further in to life all its fulness.

WHAT I WEAR!!! INTENTIONAL T-SHIRTS AND HUMILITY & FORGIVENESS

(My Thought For The Day on Good Morning Ulster on March 20, 2025...)

 

Sartorial and Steve Stockman don’t really go together. My late father was maybe the neat and tidiest human I ever met but his son… Scruff has been a nick name at various times. 

I was at a Conference last week and the dress was to be smart casual but someone said, “Never worry sure Steve’s coming”. Jeans and a rock band t-shirt is my every day attire. 

But don’t think it is careless. Oh no I am careful to look as careless as I can and many of my t-shirts are chosen for the day that’s in it. Going to the A Complete Unknown the Dylan film. Will it’s a Dylan shirt… St. Patrick’s Day it was my green Rory Gallagher. Ever Intentional.

What we wear scruffy or tidy can have an impact.

At that Conference I was at, Rev Robert Bell shared about intentional clothes. He was speaking from St.Paul’s letter to the Colossians where Paul tells the church to “clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another… Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

I was struck by it because it had been almost the same thought that Pope Francis (who we keep in our prayers) shared with us when we met him in his private library a couple of year’s back. He said, “Read the Gospels until you wear the Jesus you are reading about”.

Now some might dismiss this as nice and inane. My teachers always hated us using the word nice. Yet, I have come to see these words as brave and revolutionary. 

To be humble in a society where every seems to need to be the winner. Brave! Compassion on someone can get you social media abuse and forgiving others that others don’t think you should forgive. Think of the courage of Gordon Wilson. 

I’d love to live in a city or neighbourhood or home where people wore intentionally compassion, kindness, humility. Imagine that kinda world. 

So, for the next few weeks in Lent, and then on after, I am going to wear those Jesus values with the same intention as I wear my jeans and t-shirt. Every morning as I reach for that shirt, I’ll reach for who I might forgive and live in my community, wearing Jesus. 

THE PAST... IN THE NOW...

(my script for this morning's Thought For The Day on Good Morning Ulster...)

 

We’ve had cousins in from Canada this past week. My wife, Janice’s cousin Heather and her husband Tim. There was a lot of time spent in graveyards and looking at old black and white photos. 

We spent a day in Portrush. We think Grandpa Gordon was born on Kerr Street but it was then up the steps to Mark Street to see where Janice’s dad lived when he was evacuated during the war. Oh and hello to the lovely lady we met on the steps who recognised my voice from Thought For The Day.

The past. The older I get the more fascinated I am. Not only where and how our ancestors lived but how that impacts me the son, grandson, great grandson. I am utterly convinced that our habits and behaviours might be a result of great grandparents we never met as much as I am always in the wrong lane because my father was always in the wrong lane. .

I read a book a while back that agreed with me. In Calvin College Professor James K A Smith’s book How To Inhabit Time he surmises how much the past impacts us now. 

He is convinced that “A rolling stone might carry no moss, but a temporal human being picks up and carries an entire history as they roll through a lifetime.”

The history of all those names on those graves in Ballywillian cemetery or whatever cemetery our ancestors are buried lie deep within us and work their way out in how we live all these years, decades or centuries later.

Smith concludes:

“Our past is not what we have left behind; it’s what we carry. It’s like we have been handed a massive ring of  jangling keys. Some of them unlock possible futures. Some of them have enchained our neighbours. We are thrown into the situation of trying to discern which is which.”

As well as the graves we showed our Canadian cousins across the north-east coast. Dunluce Castle, The Giants Causeway, Carrick a Rede Rope Bridge, Kinbane Castle, Murlough Bay and of course those Dark Hedges. It all made me gasp afresh at how beautiful a wee country we live in. 

And I was also thinking about the keys we all carry of our past in a wounded society and it had me praying that we would choose the ones that set one another free to peace and prosperity. 

RUNNING THROUGH A CLOUD OF LOVE

(My script for Thought For The Day on October 1st 2024 on Good Morning Ulster...)

Sunday week ago was the Belfast Half Marathon.

I didn’t always have a good relationship with the Half Marathon. Being on a Sunday morning it interrupted church. Our congregation were from all over Belfast and so many roads were blocked especially the one right outside. 

I took it to a Lord Mayor. Shift it to the afternoon and we’ll even help you do it… but of course it was a few churches in the morning verses all the shops in the afternoon. Money wins.

As I grumped at the door, one Half Marathon Sunday, a parishioner asked what was annoying me. I told him I was mad that they took no consideration of us. “Well Steve”, he said, “The early church didn’t have access to Lord Mayors or power or feel entitled.” 

Of course. A light went off in my head. The next year we stopped complaining and started enjoying the Half Marathon. The prophet Jeremiah wrote about praying for the peace and prosperity of the city. It was time for Fitzroy to pray.

So, we went out the front on Half Marathon Sunday. We cut up oranges and opened bags of jelly babies. We pumped out positive music and started cheering and clapping.

Oh the early runners were too focused but it wasn’t long until a few started waving, thanking us, taking the oranges and a wee sugar rush jelly baby. We are perfectly placed. Twelve miles in. One to go. They were hitting the wall. Just where you need encouragement.

We found it addictive. Loved it. The church service start time was put back and back. I could have preached from Hebrews, “let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds” or we could actually do what it says. Serving others. Particles of light across the city.

And then the feedback. Social media started throwing up thank yous. Many said it helped them through. Some called it their highlight of the race. One said it was like running through a cloud of love.

I loved that. Imagine if every time we were hitting the wall in life we ran through a cloud of love. A bunch of folk cheering us, lifting us, carrying us. That’s a city I want to live in and help create..

HUMILITY IN CASTLES AND VATICANS

(my script for Thought For The Day on BBC Radio Ulster on September 24, 2024...)

 

If you had told me as a 16 year old that I would meet Royalty and the Pope I would have laughed out loud. Indeed at 60 I would have told you to catch yourself on.

Yet, in 2022 and 2023 both happened. Fr Martin Magill, my wife Janice and I had a private audience with Pope Francis as a result of 10 years of the 4 Corners Festival that we founded, in his private library. 

Just over a year later my family were in the inner sanctums of Windsor Castle as Princess Anne pinned an MBE on me, apparently for my skirmishes with peace making. 

It was Princess Anne who set this Thought For The Day going… 

I had one intention when I finally stood before the Princess Royal. I had been rehearsing it for days, As I was there for my contribution to peace building I wanted to thank the Royal Family for their contributions here and to encourage them to continue.

The late Queen’s state visit to Dublin in 2011 when she spoke Irish at the State Dinner and shaking hands with Martin McGuinness in Belfast a year later made huge contributions to our peace building.

And my chance came. When Princess Anne pinned the medal to my lapel I said thank you and, quickly in case time was short, thanked her family for their peace building.

Princess Anne took me off guard. She took it shyly, almost rejecting my thank you. As we chatted, with more time than I thought, she finally said that it was all about humility. 

I quickly got a bit too religious and said that even God was humble, coming to earth to live among us. The God of the manger, the donkey, feet washing and the cross. She quickly shook my hand!!

As we were leaving, taking as much time as we could in the castle’s beautiful grounds, I was surmising the word humility. 

That was the word on our lips when we left the Vatican too. Pope Francis was so humble. It is not easy to be humble when you live in castles or the Vatican. Yet that was the lasting impact of these two mad moments in the life of a wee boy from Ballymena. 

Humility - others above self. If we lived that out it would change the world.

SUMMITING EVEREST IS NOT THE END - Surmise on Peacebuilding

(my script for Thought For The Day on BBC Radio Ulster on September 17, 2024...)

 

I remember the phone call. It was around 8 am and Caroline was telling my wife Janice that her husband Nigel had summited Everest. I remember a sense of relief. Then euphoria.

Nigel was on Everest to do medical research. Research done and there was a chance of conquering the highest mountain in the world. 

I was learning that you didn’t just get out at the highest Base Camp and make a run for it. It would depend on the weather. He would need the right weather at the right time. It might not have happened but it had. 

He had made it. I felt the sense of achievement. Not everyone summits the world.

When Nigel came home and talked about reaching the top of Everest he told me that he doesn’t endorse the idea that we conquer mountains. We are blessed to reach their summits and it might be possible in doing so to conquer our own fears and worries.

He also said that that when you get to the top of Everest you are only half way there.  Coming down can be more dangerous. You can be complacent. There are ice movements coming down Everest that can be the most dangerous part. 

Nigel didn’t even think it was over when he got down the mountain BUT he felt that he would only make it when he was back home with his family.

It’s good advice for every project. An understanding about when the challenge is actually conquered. When can I relax? When is it done? 

This is Good Relations Week and Saturday, September 21st, is International Peace Day. Over the weekend some of us will reflect on the anniversary of 30 years since our ceasefires. A mountain conquered it seemed. There was relief. Euphoria. 

But it wasn’t the end. We need to continue to build on the peace that was made. Making peace was not the end. The next bit can be just as dangerous. It will take the same kind of empathy. The same imagination. Just as much courage. We need to be as committed to keep moving until we have more than a constitutional peace but a peace that everyone is experiencing every single day. Blessed are the peace makers.

A OCTOGENARIAN IN THE DRIVE THRU' - GRACE OR VENGEANCE?

(This is the script of my Thought For The Day on BBC Radio Ulster on March 21st 2024)

 

I was taken by the story of an 83 year old man. He spoke about how he’d gone for  breakfast at the McDonald’s drive in. It seems that he is not driving fast or precise enough for a young woman in the car behind him. She starts tooting and shouting insults.

Unperturbed when he gets to the first window where he has to pay for his breakfast the old man also pays for the young rascal in the car behind. When the man at the window tells the young woman that her meal has been paid for it causes instant reconciliation and the young women is now shouting her repentance and thank yous.

When the old man reaches the window where he picks up his food…he also picks up the young woman’s food and drives off… leaving our young ageist driver to get to the back of the queue all over again!

His punchline is not to mess with the elderly. I love it!

You see as we laugh at the twist in the tale we should also look deep into our souls.

When the older man showed grace and paid for the young woman’s food we were taken with that. That’s a radical act of forgiveness. Good on you. Leave that young woman in penitence but grateful for a loving act of kindness.

However, when our sneaky octogenarian wrought vengeance and almost hilariously sends our public enemy Number 1 to the back of the line we kind of like that almost better. Good on you sir. Boy she deserved it.

Isn’t that our inner selves. We are torn between justice and love, vengeance and forgiveness. We hold love and forgiveness up as a powerful virtue but we grin with glee at vengeance.

The problem is that with most things vengeance that leads to vengeance that leads to even more vengeance is like a snowball spiralling down a mountain picking up snow and speed for a destructive end. 

Grace and forgiveness stops the avalanche of grief and sets us up for healing and peace.

So today when my McDonald’s drive through scenario strikes I pray that I am courageous in the choice I make between paying for the Micky Dee meal and sending that girl back into the early morning queue? 

ST. PATRICK'S DAY - SCHOOLS' CUP &... ST. PATRICK

(This is the script for my Thought For The Day on BBC Radio Ulster on March 14, 2024... The photograph is from the Belfast telegraph in 1981... Ballymena Academy winning the cup for the second time ever, in my Lower Seventh year!)

 

St Patrick’s Day is coming down the diary pages and that can only mean two things for a Ballymena man like myself. First up, will we win the School’s Cup again this year?

And before you Campbellians and Methody peeps laugh at us, with just 3 Cup victories to our name, what chance have you guys got on Monday?

Second up on St. Patrick’s Day for at least this Ballymena man, is St. Patrick.

Growing up on the Braid, Slemish looms large in our landscape. And as well as it being a dormant volcano we were all taught that it was the home of St. Patrick. 

So on Monday I’ll see Slemish in my imagination, though I’ll not be actually able to see it from my seat at Ravenhill. 

I’ll think of a young Patrick, kidnapped into slavery, sitting on that mountain. What was he thinking? How did he like the Irish? What about home?

The story goes that while tending sheep on Slemish, Patrick reflected on his relationship with God and it changed everything. Patrick wrote about God guiding him to a port where he would find a ship home. Escape. The ordeal done. The Irish put behind him.

But… for Patrick, that discovering God meant that he would feel called back to those who had so brutally kidnapped and enslaved him so that he could tell them the Good News of Jesus and send them down different paths. 

Some fourteen centuries later Belfast would be the port that would ban the slave ships, influenced by that Gospel that one slave came back to bring. Patrick’s time on Slemish didn’t only change everything for him but for the entire island as today’s celebrations across the world attest to.

It is an amazing story of forgiveness, new beginnings and lots of hope. Hope like our politicians working together for a better health service. Like first and deputy first ministers seeming to be having fun at each other’s sport’s matches. 

Maybe the spirit of St. Patrick and his forgiveness for those who treated him so badly can inspire us again and fire within us new beginnings and hope. 

Christ be with us, Christ within us, Christ behind us, Christ before us. Have a blessed St Patrick’s Day… and on Monday, come on the Culchies!