Ghosts of Ireland

I found this article on the Relevant Magazine Website, It's entitled "Ghosts of Ireland" By Curt Lamm

“The great Gaels of Ireland are then men that God made mad, for all their wars are merry and all their songs are sad.” -Old Irish proverb

“It’s the same old thing since 1916 / in your head, in your head they’re still fighting." - "Zombie", the Cranberries

The first time I set foot in Northern Ireland, in 1999, I believed I was prepared for whatever would be thrown my way. I had spent some time studying the country’s history (I mean seriously, how many other Americans even knew that Northern Ireland was part of the United Kingdom and not Ireland). Protestant/Catholic feuding? No problem: My mom’s family is Roman Catholic and my dad’s lineage is Methodist. I was on the down-low with all parties involved.

I would be lying if I didn’t say that I half expected a parade announcing my triumphant entry. Prepare ye the way! But my heart was broken by the fifth day of my journey as my arrogance was replaced with terrible grief. Each successive trip over the next 5 years would continue to undo everything that I thought I believed about God and humanity and pain and joy. Northern Ireland must be lived and breathed, for no amount of theory does it justice.

There is a thought in Ireland that nothing is ever new or final; history repeats itself and evolves in cycles that refuse to accept linear motion. Century-old transgressions rear their head at the most inopportune moments. The real attraction to this divided land is the physical, tangible prospect of peace in a culture that has known division and segregation since the tenth century. It is a story of hope that hovers right around the periphery. It is a tale of reconciliation in a world of epic madness.
The divide within Northern Ireland transcends politics and religion and DNA and whose football club a person supports. There is a sadness that blankets souls and suffocates the joy that screams to be heard. There are enough ghosts haunting the memories of this beautiful country to fill a thousand cemeteries. Ireland is called the Terrible Beauty not by accident; everything about her embraces you and shoves you away all at once. She asks you to be both amazed and understanding.

If Ireland is considered the terrible beauty, then Northern Ireland could be thought of as the Intentional Beauty. A nation of symbols and anthems, subtlety has long been swapped for audacity. Streets and neighborhoods declare allegiance to the past as they unfurl in Union Jacks and Irish Tricolors. Some murals croon the most tragic and beautiful verses ever penned while others unabashedly spew venom and intolerance.

Here’s the skinny on Northern Ireland in a huge and generalized Cliff Notes sort of way:

Protestants and Catholics have been living together since the early 1000’s. Each have some pretty valid claims to support their belief.

Catholic argument: The six counties that compose Northern Ireland should be enveloped back into the whole of the Republic of Ireland.

Protestant argument: Northern Ireland must remain a member of the United Kingdom.

This is a broad stroke, and it is painted with the extreme positions in mind. Throw in some more confusing terms like: Unionist, Republican, Nationalist, IRA, UVF—the list of stereotypes and acronyms are endless. And certainly, there are some moderate positions. Not all Catholics want the same thing, just as there are variations within the Protestant system. I have friends on both sides of the fence—literally. There is a massive, barbed-wire wall that segregates Catholic and Protestant parts of Belfast, and they all just want the same thing: Peace and a self-governing system that represents them fairly.

This terrible, intentional beauty came alive to me in 2002. All the ideas that can never be trapped in text accosted me. Any preconceived notion that plagued my mind was challenged as the group I was with spent a few weeks in a little town called Larne, just a few bus stops past Belfast. Once I was there, I understood how little I knew because Northern Ireland is not a place that an outsider ever really gets to know. She reveals parts of herself at her own convenience and leisure. I attempted to forget and displace any agenda that I might have. I wanted the country to speak for itself.

Boyne Square and Seacourt were two notorious housing estates in Larne. Each with its own paramilitary presence, they held an intimidating reputation outside their respective boundaries. While they were only separated by a mile or so, they might as well have been eons and continents apart, because Catholics never went to Boyne Square and Protestants would never set foot in Seacourt. To do so meant probable and immanent danger. Perhaps even death.

My group adopted a time-honored tradition that dated back to Christ … we helped the little children. We rented a giant inflatable bouncy castle and divided our days between the two housing estates: Seacourt in the morning and Boyne Square in the afternoons. We learned more from these kids than we could have ever thought. They had grown up with definite and deliberate views. They were products of hundreds of years of segregation, feuding, bombings and terrorist activities. But they were more than statistics to us. They brought home the troubles of Northern Ireland in a personal way. They all have dreams and want to do things like other kids all over the world.

They just want to be kids.

Editorial note: Author Curt Lamm just returned from another trip to N. Ireland. Expect more reads in the coming weeks.

Ghosts of Ireland Part II
There’s a saying in Northern Ireland that if you think you understand what is going on, then you know nothing. It is easy to categorize people and events into pretty little boxes that allow us to label things for our own convenience. And while generalizations have connotations for a reason, they are not absolute; there is some wiggle-room for variation. My intention in "Ghost of Ireland (part I)" was not to simplify centuries of conflict into a nice, neat package, but to paint, with broad strokes, on a canvas that might give someone a tiny glimpse of what life is like there.

I will never understand what it has been like to grow up and live through daily life in Northern Ireland. All that I can do is relate my experiences to others. I have seen the result of unemployment and boredom. Little hope mixed with futility equals a debasement of value that eats at a person’s soul with starved veracity.

This past winter, I spent time in Belfast at a drop in center. The guys who came in on a daily basis were anywhere between 17-and 25-years-old. We played pool and darts, but mainly two things happened: I lost miserably at every game I played, and I listened. A question was posed to me several times over my two months in Belfast. Sometimes it was asked with cynical mockery, and other times it was whispered with barely audible curiosity: Why would you come to Northern Ireland?
Ah—my chance for glory! Perhaps my divinely-inspired retort would spark mass-revival. There wouldn’t be enough catchers for the huge K.O. the Holy Spirit was about to throw down. Time to make history; I was only a hours removed from the BBC coming live on the scene to record this event for all time.

“Why did I come to Northern Ireland (lights, camera, action)?” I asked back. “Because God told me to.”

Realistic hope for a future must be an option that is put back onto the table. All the hours and hours of listening to these guys painted a picture of bleak hopelessness. There was no anticipation for a future. I told them the truth: That God asked me to go because He wants them to have hope. He created them and He is crazy about them. Their mere existence made Him smile and broke His heart all in the same instance. There was more to life than the daily grind of routine. They were created in the image of a loving and personal God who instilled value within them from day one. They were not statistics.

Rather than God being looked upon as the root of most problems in society, there needs to be a reckoning of revival, but not of the "old time gospel hour" variety. Northern Ireland has seen her share of this tired, played out spectacle. No, there needs to be a revival of the soul and spirit. An awakening of the intellect that is enveloped into the very fabric of who God created His children to be. Not a new renaissance or reformation, but a simple realization should suffice: The understanding that value is inherent to every living person under the sun. A validation and reinforcement that God is not only alive, but that He is very much on the move. Faith, hope and love with feet.

I have met and worked with these "hands of God" in Belfast. I volunteered with a group called Youth With A Mission. My latest trip to Northern Ireland had me living in Belfast, in a community infamous for its past legacy of violence. I saw, first-hand the difference between people who are trying to reach their community, and people who are simply living godly in a place they love. The divide between these two categories is much deeper than semantically coined phrases. People who employ the "reaching their community" ethos typically see themselves (whether they admit it or not) as having the ability to offer a solution to others who are in desperate need of "saving." There can tend to be shadowed by a martyr complex that borders on patronizing. That is, they view themselves as outside the very community they want to reach.

YWAM, rather, chooses to be part of that community. They are involved with everything from teaching forgiveness curriculum in the school system, to running breakfast clubs for younger children who might not get a healthy meal at home. They have not segregated themselves outside of their community. It is implicitly understood that not only did Jesus offer hope, He offered availability. He showed up.

This, I think is what revival can look like. It doesn’t mean an orchestrated, predictable church sermon blared from a pulpit. It’s not a message so familiar that people can lip-synch to it. No … I think revival can be a whisper on a crowded bus or a smile that looks into the soul of the hopeless and presents genuine hope. It is the reviving of the plan that God has for all his children: a future.

I can think of nothing more sinister than the loss of hope. In one breath, life can go from eagerly awaiting the future, to living in a damneable state of comatose-like existence. Why is hope considered as one of the three greatest things? Faith, hope and love. Maybe because it allows a person a glimpse that things are going to get better. Maybe it affords us the chance to understand that our present struggles are not the point of this life, but rather an enhancement of what the true point actually is: There is something greater than all of us. Something that is unaffected by our present situation, no mater how despicable or glorious. Hope is not just an idea. It’s a lifestyle.

But one cannot present hope unless one shows up.