"Is this really what Jesus told you guys to do?"

I went along to a North Belfast Presbytery service in Carnmoney Presbyterian last night. An eye-shaped building, combining a large (possibly a thousand-seater?) auditorium with the intimacy of a much smaller venue, by virtue of curved rows of seats, and curved, tiered balcony.
I arrived late, and they were already singing. Singing well, actually. The music was not too glitzy, but lively and enticing. I saw a ten-year-old-ish girl dancing along spontaneously.
Isn't this how church should be?
Well, maybe not, actually, though it is far, far better than many less enthusiastic, and unenthusing alternatives. Which leads me to the subject of my recent reading:

Jim & Casper Go To Church: Casper the Atheist is hired by Jim Henderson the White Male American Pastor, to come visit some different churches and receive $25 per visit, in return for his thoughts and impressions. It's an interesting cross-section of church experiences, and should be on the reading list for any seminary. But really the back of the fly-leaf tells the main point: "Is this really what Jesus told you guys to do?"

Now, if that line were to become the test by which church leadership meetings guided their decisions, I wonder what difference it would make...

Of Women, and children first

Juno. Loved this film. And hated it. Or rather, hated the fact that I cried my way through, in between the comedy. It's a fairy tale, really. You can tell by the artificially clever dialogue. These aren't characters, they are representatives. A teenage pregnant superhero, more together than the adults around her. Screwed up... gutsy, witty, unrealistically controlled and calculating in her sexuality, though her vulnerability shows through in the end.

It's a film about women and their bodies. Wanting babies and not having them. Not wanting them and having them. And hapless males with nothing of value to say on the subject. For all that can be said about the positive modelling of choosing life and choosing to give the child up for adoption, the real challenge would be a film which explored other options, which include choosing to save sex for a stable, committed (even married?) relationship. Now THAT would be radical.

Or, what about a film which shows MEN dealing with the desire for children, and their desire and proactive search for intimate relationship which isn't just about reproductive organs? Is this just too far beyond a filmmaker's imagination? Or beyond the imagination of the financial backers, perhaps? Fairy Tales shape our imagination - and thereby, our future.

Truth Commissioner

For reasons too complex to explain here, I found myself alone at David Park's book launch tonight, in Belfast's Linen Hall Library. (I love that venue! The glassy strip of staircase rising four, five stories high between Victorian shops).

I haven't read The Truth Commissioner. It arrived on my bedside table just before I fell asleep last night. So I was not only alone; I was ignorant. I've never read any of David Park's books. Criminally negligent-ly Ignorant.

I came home with an armful. All written out of the Troubles, it seems. What else is there, if you come from here? Well... I guess to write from here and not find the Troubles on the sleeve is to have neglected one permeating factor in all our lives.

Odd then, that so much preaching, sermon-writing, modern praise music emanating from the Northern part of this Island seems to ignore that claustrophobic elephant. The one we hope will go away if we don't talk about it. What sort of Truth is this, that castigates only our enemies, condemns only Others, and fails to empower Protestants to stay in an area when Roman Catholics move in?

Truth has been substantially decommissioned; laid aside in a dark space, out of sight, while we quietly go out of our minds. Fill them with makeovers, holidays, new kitchens and plasma tellies - and despise anyone who chooses greener, more neighbourly tv-free lifestyles. While sneering and superficiality are in vogue, what philanthropist will commission new works?

Artists of the World Unite. You have nothing to lose but your audience.

Going, Going...

Gone? Can anyone tell me, are Comfort Adefowoju and her children still in the UK? Or were they sent back to Nigeria?

Leaving on a Jet Plane?

Unbelievable. If Sinn Fein's website is correct, there are still plans to deport Comfort Adefowoju and her children tomorrow.
What will it take for the Home Office to realise that these are not the people to be removing from the UK!?

Speechless. And disgusted.

Changing airports

Instead of concerned bystanders watching weary parents tussling with three-year olds, we have oohs and aahs, as Littlun merrily rolls along astride her Trunki. The airport's atmosphere changes as we pass. I'm putting time in waiting for our flight. Normally at this stage, I'm torn between boredom with the millionth sedentary reread of Dora the Explorer, and the unpalatable attempt to trail a hefty Littlun and her entertainment bag (books, toys, crayons) around the airport. Today I'm walking about comfortably, with Trunki rolling easily (if a little erratically) behind.

He's not capacious, as suitcases go. But for travelling light, in both kilos and humour, our Green TowGo hit the spot.

All went well till my precious charge fell asleep unexpectedly on the return journey, just as we were arriving at the airport, and I wished I had brought my pushchair after all. But when she awoke, going through the security portal, one sight of Trunki was enough to dispel the grumbles.

The verdict: a pushchair/stroller kept until reaching the doors of the plane is the practical option for a smaller child (so long as the airline aren't charging it as extra baggage.) But Trunki certainly brightened and shortened the waiting.

Confession time: I have even used it as hand baggage when travelling without a child, as it is just the right size for the tiny hand baggage allowances on Aer Arann. It was a real squeeze to get my stuff in, but still trundled along like a puppy behind me! And no waiting for bags on arrival.

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!

Christian Unity in Ireland?

Just found a short press release indicating that the four biggest denominations in Ireland are planning to build one united church building in Adamstown, Ireland's newest town. I've been saying for years that Irish Christianity had more to offer the world than the phrase "Ireland... that's where the Christians are killing each other, isn't it?"
Whether a shared building will give us a home to perpetrate our domestic violence, or a place to build a shared family, or both, remains to be seen.

Educating Refugees

There's an article in FT today on the disruption of refugee children's education, and how their education (or lack thereof) is used as a weapon against the parents. It's a real rock-and-hardplace to have to choose between actual threat of physical harm, and the loss of your children's longterm social and educational wellbeing.

This is what upsets me about Comfort Adefowoju (see earlier post) and her children having been taken out of a community where they were thriving and contributing, to be banged up in Yarls Wood detention centre, and repeatedly brought to the brink of repatriation to an unliveable situation in Nigeria.

I can see that on the scale of what refugees worldwide have to face, they are at least fed and watered and relatively safe in the meantime... but these are the ones we can do something about (if the government will only listen) A bit like the thousands of starfish all washed up on the seashore after a storm. The child picking them up and throwing them back in the water may not be able to save them all, but she makes a difference to each one, one by one.

A Shared Future?

Naomi Long MLA challenged the Deputy First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly today on its apparent shelving of the Shared Future document. McGuinness seemed to say that since that document was produced by a previous administration, it wasn't going to be implemented, but rather replaced by another document. If you can't solve the problem, write about it.

Could it be that the two largest parties who share in government here have the most to lose by reducing the segregation, the so-called "peace walls", the sectarian society?

Comfort in Belfast

I really don't get it. The government seems more determined to deal with the statistics arond immigration than with the problems it can cause. Seemingly impervious to the local community's demands for Comfort Adefowoju and her four children to remain in East Belfast, where they were constructively and happily adding to the much-needed diversity of our city, the Home Office took them to Yarls Wood detention centre, and has been trying to fly them back to Nigeria, where they face a serious risk to their personal safety. Isn't it time that Belfast became a place of asylum and peace, of security and diversity, instead of the sectarian and racist capital of Europe?

Give Comfort back to Belfast.

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.