Crystal Palace, of Course

The other day I stood in our hallway, chatting with our plumber as he awaited a response from his supervisor. In no time at all we were talking about sports. He discussed the impression given from television that all Americans play football, and that every home has a basketball hoop above the garage. I talked about my experience of playing basketball and baseball as a child. It was a pleasant conversation, and it occurred to me how often sports becomes a tool for me to connect with other people.

The first day I spent with Whitehouse Primary School, the boys in the P5 class asked me which football (soccer) team I support. Imagine their surprise at my response: “Crystal Palace of course!” Word must have spread quickly that the American who works with the Primary 5 class is a Crystal Palace supporter. The next few weeks, children from other classes whom I had never met would approach to ask which football club I support, as if to confirm the incredible rumors. Primarily it is the boys in the class who are interested in soccer, so every Friday I can raise the topic with them, to preview the weekend matches, debrief the previous week, and offer some friendly trash talk. The week that Crystal Palace beat Liverpool 3-1 was particularly exciting. Every single boy in the class, and a couple of the girls spend their recess playing football. They ask me to referee, which really means that I must deescalate disputes and keep track of who gets to be goalie next.

          For many young men and boys in Northern Ireland, sport is an important component of their identity. Most would be proud to tell you what football club they support, but many also invest their time in playing football, rugby, boxing, etc. The Boys’ Brigade I work with plays football every week, with matches on Saturdays. Like my plumber they are also intrigued by sports culture in the United States. In summary, my sporting literacy has proved important in building relationships with the boys I work with in Northern Ireland.

              Sports can also be a divisive issue. Sectarian tensions have a way of sneaking into many corners of life in Northern Ireland. Children in Catholic schools would have very few opportunities to play rugby, and Protestant schoolchildren know almost nothing about Gaelic football or hurling. Football could, or perhaps should, serve as common ground, but it seems that most clubs have been staked out by one side or the other. If you support the Irish national team you would not support the Northern Irish team. A friend told me recently that Chelsea is a Protestant team, although I doubt that is a self-designation. I have heard also about the famous Celtic vs. Rangers rivalry, which makes Glasgow a battleground for Catholic and Protestant hostilities. I can’t claim to know everything about the division in sports culture, but it seems you can make a lot of judgments about somebody based on what type of lunchbox they have.

Sports are also divided along gender lines, which should be a familiar-sounding problem for readers in the U.S. The boys at Whitehouse Primary will not refuse a girl who wants to play with them, which is great. But that girl will not have many opportunities to touch the ball. The boys are not at fault of course. As in the States, there seem to be cultural constructions that determine who can play and who can’t, a set of values that they all learn as they grow up.

              Great opportunities for learning also emerge from sports. They are not just tools of division and outlets for hostility. The schoolyard context provides countless teachable moments. Inclusion, forgiveness, and fairness would be common threads. Peace Players exploits the opportunities in team sports by asking questions about identity, stereotypes, and peer influence. Sports have provided me with excellent opportunities to connect with young people, and perhaps at some point in the future football, rugby, and Gaelic football will be used less as a language of division, and more as a way to connect and have fun with people who are different.  

             

They Write Songs About This Island

Ireland has an exceptionally rich cultural history, and I think I am beginning to understand why.

 

Indiana Jones allusions abound at Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge.

 

It is an astonishingly beautiful island. My theory goes like this:



View from an ancient hill fort in County Donegal, Ireland
(Photo Credit: Suzanne Huffine)

When the weather is nice, everyone wanders around outside, exploring green fields, ancient ruins, dramatic cliffs that look out over the sea. 



 

 



Panoramic view of the Causeway Coast

The potential for creative inspiration is evident. The spectacular Causeway Coast gave rise to a whole mythology surrounding a bridge-building giant named Finn.





Ancient hill fort in County Donegal, Ireland.
 (Handsomeness Credit: Keith Thompson)



Dunluce Castle, Northern Ireland

 

 

While visiting Dunluce Castle (pictured above left), my imagination could not resist filling the castle with songs, banquets, royal drama, and maybe even a troll. 

St. Columb's Cathedral, Derry, Northern Ireland

 

 

 

But if it was sunny every day we would have a problem. With all the strolling, exploring, and imagining, nobody would bother to sit and pen a poem or a song.

 

 

 

 

And that's where the rain comes in. It's true that it makes the grass green and occasionally treats us with a rainbow. But it also allows the people of Ireland to release the beauty impressed on their imagination onto a page, or in a song. Or perhaps I just need a reason to not hate the rain.

 

 

 

An ancient church and cemetery near. Rostrevor, Northern Ireland
(Photo Credit: Suzanne Huffine)

 



"I Love Him Too"



Forgiveness is a learned behavior. It can be practiced, improved, and performed. This challenging claim serves as a thesis to a film called "A Step Too Far? A Contemplation on Forgiveness” that the Irish Churches Peace Project presented over four weeks in October, accompanied by lectures and discussion. The film used the case of the 2006 shooting in an Amish schoolhouse to frame its exploration of forgiveness. The objective of the Northern Irish filmmakers was to take the lessons learned from the stories and ethos of the Amish people, and offer them as a resource for the ongoing reconciliation project in Northern Ireland. Though the filmmakers intentionally organized their presentation for a Northern Irish audience, the possibility of reconciliation is a question of global import. If you have any doubt about that, a quick glance at todays headlines offers confirmation. Communities in Ukraine, Chicago, Missouri, Mexico, Syria, Burkina Faso, Israel and Palestine, and on Capitol Hill in D.C. ache for reconciliation, not to mention the need at the level of tribe, family, friendship, and individual.

Over four Wednesdays our conversations ran the gamut on questions of forgiveness: does forgiveness depend on the offense? Or on an apology? Is forgiveness demanded unconditionally by Christian ethics? Does it oppose the need for justice? Who is meant to benefit from forgiveness? All these questions emerged from the film’s surprising claims about Amish society. Within days of the massacre in the Amish schoolhouse, representatives of the Amish community connected with the family of the killer to articulate their forgiveness, and offer their friendship. The film offers a handful of similar stories, and submits that this remarkable forgiveness is not just a theological imperative for the Amish, but a natural response after years of socialization. This challenges a popular assumption that forgiveness must be in defiance of a natural urge for vengeance. The need for revenge is a cultural observation, not an objective reality. Forgiveness can come just as naturally, if we intentionally cultivate that behavior. Woah. For all of the countless times I have asked a child to say, “I’m sorry,” have I even once asked a child to say, “I forgive you?” I think it’s time to start.

 

 



A mural depicting the events of Bloody Sunday in 1972 in Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland.



 

Forgiving is an exercise in humanizing the other; it refuses to reduce an aggressor to the crime that they committed. As Paul said, and as I cited in a previous post, “from now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view” (2 Corinthians 5:16). My mentors and friends here have identified Northern Ireland as a “divided society.” That label hardly makes it unique, but it does suggest that forgiveness could have tremendous social benefit by allowing people to look beyond the categories of us and them to build personal relationships, departing from the legacy of violence. I would guess that is why the Irish Churches Peace Project invested in the film.

Suddenly I find the themes from those Wednesday evenings resonating in many other arenas. The radical suggestion that forgiveness is as much a decision as a feeling has implications for politics, parenting, and criminal justice. Speaking as an American, I can say with confidence that I grew up in a society obsessed with vengeance. Watch Sons of Anarchy on Netflix if you disagree. But I am encouraged by the story of Grady Bankhead, an Alabama inmate in the midst of a life sentence who shared with a film crew his response to the murder of his daughter. Speaking of the murderer he said, “He’s a human being… and I love him too; it’s a choice.”

 

 

 

Passenger

If I’m being really honest I miss driving my car. I identify with Iggy Pop, always a passenger. I often accept rides home from the folks at Whitehouse Presbyterian, but for many journeys I rely on Belfast’s bus network. Using the city busses requires a tremendous amount of organization; at least that’s how it feels to me. I have to check the timetables before I leave my house, departing on the 7-minute walk to the bus stop. And I can’t take just any bus, the 2a doesn’t get me close to the church. If I’m going to Whitehouse primary school, I must be even more selective. I must remember to top up my card occasionally, AND remember to give my receipts to Doug, but only for my work card. It’s all very stressful; you’re allowed to feel sorry for me.

Yes, it's a bad photo taken from a bus. But it was a double-decker bus.

Setting aside the drama for a moment, riding the bus allows me to feel a little closer to the community of Belfast. I know little about rugby and less about Downton Abbey, but I can share the experience of bus travel with the people of Northern Ireland. When those goons were blasting house music on the second level at 8 a.m., I got to exchange frustrated looks with other passengers. When English tourists needed guidance, I had an answer for them. It is also a great joy to strike up conversations with friendly strangers. I’ve met a young man who aspires to live overseas and questions the existence of God. He said he was Protestant but really he just cares about being a human. I learned a great deal about Northern Irish politics from a man who I believe was without a home. He was intelligent and kind. And just Friday I met Sting’s greatest fan, who suspects that Obama is Illuminati.

In general my bus encounters are very positive. When they are not positive they are at least memorable. In my own car I have a little world to myself, and I miss that. It can be controlled very carefully: the music, the temperature, the speed. In contrast, the world of bus travel is a powerful affirmation of chaos theory, but the people of Belfast are mostly generous and kind. And it is a delight to share that world with them. 

What is Peace Players? (Sweet to the beat!)

On Tuesdays and Wednesdays I hop in a car with a couple blokes and drive on the left all the way to Ballymena, a half-hour away from my house in North Belfast. We are coaches for Peace Players, an organization that uses basketball as a tool to bring together children and youth from divided communities. My basketball skills exemplify mediocrity, but thankfully the 8 and 9-year-olds that we coach have never seen a ball that they weren’t allowed to kick. We only worry about teaching the basics, and that is probably all I could teach anyway.

              The 90-minute sessions that we coach are called “Twinnings;” two classes from two schools in Ballymena are paired together. From those 50 or so kids we put together four mixed teams. The schools in Northern Ireland are almost completely segregated along Catholic/Protestant lines. My impression is that less than 10% of schools are consciously integrated. A Protestant child could conceivably learn to read, learn algebra, then calculus, read A Tale of Two Cities, and never have a substantial conversation with a Catholic child until their gap year in Spain. The absence of violence is not a synonym for peace. As much as we want the kids in Ballymena to learn basketball skills, the real value of a Twinning is the opportunity to develop friendships with children from a different community. Every session includes a “Community Relations” segment that is meant to get the kids talking about diversity, prejudice, and other non-basketball concerns.

              My comrades and I lead three sessions each week for 8 weeks. 3 sessions = 6 schools = about 160 children by my reckoning. There are several other Twinning sessions happening in Belfast right now, not to mention the Under-14 girls team, the Champions 4 Peace, and several special events. Altogether the number of kids that encounter Peace Players in a year is in the thousands. I think it is thrilling to watch children cross cultural boundaries by learning to play together, and to imagine that someday they may learn to live together, as the Peace Players slogan suggests.

"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation." 2 Corinthians 5:18

 Please explore the Peace Players wesite:

http://www.peaceplayersintl.org/our-programs/northern-ireland

You will notice that the Peace Players main office is in DC, but it serves communities in Northern Ireland, South Africa, Cyprus, and Israel/ Palestine.  

Welcome to Whitehouse, Will!

One of the most joyful lessons of my first few weeks in Belfast is in the recognition that there are goofy people everywhere. At least four days a week I spend some time at Whitehouse Presbyterian Church in Newtownabbey, a borough just north of Belfast. Without minimalizing the differences between life in PC(USA) and PCI (Presbyterian Church in Ireland), the people of Whitehouse are as silly and full of laughter as any church community I have been a part of. Some people are huggers; some fire off questions faster than I can answer them; and some just won't let me say no to a seventh cookie and another cup of tea. Invariably I offer a little giggle, and they apologize because they're probably scaring me, or because I'm probably like "these people are so weird," and I assure them that I am very much enjoying their company. In fact, while the accents and even the jokes are a bit different, the silliness is what makes me feel most welcome as I begin my work in partnership with Whitehouse.
Coupled with their silliness, the people at Whitehouse are commendable for their authentic concern for people both local and remote. Most of my involvement at Whitehouse is with their youth, through their Youth Fellowship, Girls' Brigade, and Boys' Brigade programs. It is evident that the congregation is committed to cultivating confidence and faithfulness in their young people. The church supports the Street Pastors of Northern Ireland, the Irish Churches Peace Project, Tearfund, and collaborates extensively with nearby Catholic churches (which seems to be somewhat scandalous). My point is this: the YAV program made no mistake in choosing Whitehouse Presbyterian as a partner in ministry.
It is worth mentioning that in 2002 a sectarian arson attack left the Whitehouse community without a building for three years. The legacy of this fire has become central, it seems, to the identity of the congregation. They are proud that their community and ministries endured the trauma, and they are even grateful because the attack became an opportunity to seek reconciliation with Catholic communities in Newtownabbey, who helped sponsor the reconstruction of Whitehouse. I have yet to worship with any other church in Northern Ireland, but I am convinced that Whitehouse is a special place.

Here is a link to Whitehouse's website:
http://www.whpci.org/index.html
Sometime soon I will post a blog about my other placement, PeacePlayers Northern Ireland. Here is a link to their site:
http://www.peaceplayersintl.org/our-programs/northern-Ireland

"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"
2 Corinthians 5:17

Bel-fasten Your Seatbelts!

“From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.” 

-2 Corinthians 5:16

Today I said farewell to dozens of Young Adult Volunteers as they climbed into airport shuttles, destined for Denver, Miami, Nashville, Colombia, South Korea, and about a dozen other sites around the globe. My flight is only hours away. Our farewells come at the end of a week-long orientation where we challenged and encouraged each other, preparing to step into our new communities. Particularly we wrestled with how to faithfully move from a place of privilege into partnership with communities that have had to bear the tremendous cost of our privilege.

This reflection was an occasion for me to consider the words of Paul to a Corinthian church that was divided along the lines of rich and poor, powerful and weak. These divisions are human-made. The lens I bring with me to Belfast tends to dehumanize and divide. While I can never fully relinquish this thorn in the flesh, by grace I may learn to regard others from a different point of view. In Belfast I should not look out and see people who need my help, or people who need Jesus, or people who just need to get along. Instead I should see the Holy Spirit at work in a community that is loved, broken, and praying for redemption, just like anybody else.

The volunteers I met this week are energetic emissaries of a God whose affection does not recognize boundaries. As partners in mission they will encounter God in themselves and in the people they meet. As you pray for me, please pray also for the 90 or so other YAVs who will be participating in God’s ministry in dozens of communities, small and large.