The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

It's a wet Sunday afternoon. Too cold to be out and about. Perfect weather for reading this deceptively simple, profound, hopeful and disturbing ... what? novel? story?
more than that.
Parable.

I can't spoil it by telling anyone more than that you must read it.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. John Boyne.

It won't take long.

It isn't difficult.

It's compelling.

As irritating as a nine-year-old boy can be.

And as deserving of attention.

Read it!

After the Move

It's hard to work in the midst of chaos.
Full marks to the painter who managed to
brighten the walls
all round the piles of furniture and boxes.

He didn't even laugh at me sitting
on the floor,
computer-less, on the phone
passed from pillar to post
by administrators.

Not out loud anyway.

Today, I wanted his job.
Tomorrow, he will finish, and walk away.
I have to Tackle the Stuff...

Whitewash is so much easier than relationships.

Chuckles

Just when western middle class guilt seemed to have induced melancholia more effectively than an Old Year's Night drink... Along came Will & Testament and William's Person(s) of the year, the new Chuckle Brothers Ian and Martin Paisley-McGuinness... Fair play. They have done the unthinkable and got little thanks for it - but it was far better than any of the alternatives on offer. Much to be thankful for in 2007.

Then I noticed a link to The Cartoon Blog Thank you Dave Walker! I was glad of the chuckles.

Omagh from the outside

I remember 15th August 1998.
It was the end of my first week in my new job. I had been living abroad, but had come "home" to contribute to the building of peace.
We were taking two carloads of young adults, including some foreign visitors, to the Marble Arch caves near Enniskillen.
On our way home, we stopped briefly to stop in Erneside shopping centre. It's not a huge place, so there was little opportunity to lose each other. But we hadn't counted on the bomb scare. Forced out through different doors, and away from our agreed meeting place, I was feeling distressed that instead of peace, our visitors were seeing the old Troubles. Instead of experiencing Irish hospitality, they were in danger.

Eventually we found each other and started back Eastwards, passing signposts for Omagh on our left. I put the radio on, and we heard the early reports of the bomb there.
Numbness, the need to reassure our visitors whilst wondering where to put that old terror rising within... the need to check on relations in the town... then a kind of guilty relief that no one I knew seemed to be hurt. But tears, waves of tears, even as I write, for the unborn children, for the mothers, fathers, grandparents, husbands, wives, children, uncles, aunts, friends... Protestant, Catholic, Mormon. Unionist, Gaelic, Spanish.

This is a small place. Sometimes we might pretend it is otherwise, but when one suffers, we all suffer - one way or another.

I wonder... would the Peace Process have had the same support, had it not been for that day in Omagh. Would we be where we are? How far from the bombers' intentions... unless... (but I can't allow myself to imagine such a cynical conspiracy as that. Can I? Who can guess the motivations of people who would do such a thing?)

Transitional Justice

I visited the Transitional Justice Institute for the first time the other day. Argentina and South Africa's experiences of how human rights activism has changed through political transition. I only understood the discussion at a very superficial level. But it was enough to trigger my own thoughts about how to ensure that our Northern Irish peace process continues to bed in.

I realised that I don't yet believe the peace is permanent. There's too much bigotry and there are too many sectarianisms around for me to be confident that we've "got it". Respect for all human beings is not yet our "point de départ", or even our default position. Our theologies here are idolatrous in providing excuses for rejecting the image of God in fellow-humans. Too many "decent folk" still prefer to shun those they disagree with, rather than engage, learn to listen, to understand and even to love. (Anything short of this is not following Christ, is it?)

While I can turn up to a church meeting and feel cold-shouldered for my theology, before I've even met folk, I cannot celebrate the quality of the love of Christ in my own denomination.