Hope is……healing the wounds of the past.
Those of you who know Father Brian will know that he has
this disarming ability to engage you in a conversation and
before you know it you have agreed to something that
perhaps you might not otherwise do – that’s why I find
myself standing here today. I suppose one thing about
accepting the invitation was that it forced me to think about
the topic more deeply.
When I asked Fr Brian what was expected, in his inimitable
style he said ‘sure it’s easy, you simply talk and they listen.’
My only plea therefore to all of you is that if you finish before
I do that you let me know.
I should also tell you that I have been called many a name in
my career, some nice and some less than complementary but
I have to say when I saw ‘preacher’ on the leaflet that was a
first.
As Fr Brian said I am currently the CEO of Co-operation
Ireland, an organisation that has been working for more than
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30 years across this island building mutual respect and
understanding between the peoples of these islands. As part
of work at one level we were closely involved with the State
visit of HM The Queen to Ireland and the return visit of
President Higgins to the UK. As part of that visit Cooperation Ireland held an event at Windsor Castle which had
the theme of reconciliation. We were also the organisation
which facilitated the first meeting between, HM The Queen
and the dFM Martin McGuiness. At the community level we
are involved in a range of programmes helping to building
bridges between communities.
For those of you who don’t know me, I was born and spent
my formative years in Enniskillen. I was a reluctant pupil at
St Michaels College but had the good fortune to have Father
Peadar Livingstone who as well as teaching history, religion
and Irish was my careers teacher. Now he was either a
visionary or he was looking rid of me pretty quickly but
somehow he persuaded me to join the police – the RUC at
the time. Looking back, at 16 I was largely unaware of the
politics of the day being more interested in following George
Best or indeed the girls from the Collegiate School – not that I
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had anything against Mount Lourdes, simply that the
Collegiate girls were close by.
It is often said to me that it must have been a courageous
thing to do – to join the police at that time, but in hindsight I
think my parents were the courageous ones, it would have
been very easy for them to say, join the Garda, or the Met, or
Scottish police, but they didn’t. My grandmother, who was
from around the corner in Monea lived with us at the time
and whilst I don’t recall a lot of discussion about the dangers
of joining the police I do recall her wisdom or wit when she
said ‘well if he is born to be shot he will never be drowned’.
I suppose in a funny sort of way that was her hope, a hope
that was akin to trust and a confident expectation that things
would be alright. Perhaps that hope was also important
because it made the reality less difficult to bear. Somehow if
we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear the
trials and tribulations of today.
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That same hope allows us to hold, the belief, the conviction
that there is a better life, a better world, just around the
corner.
No doubt that same hope allowed my grandmother to
believe that I would be safe. I don’t think it was a sense of
hope that was the same thing as optimism. It wasn’t the
conviction that something would turn out well, but the
certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it
turns out.
I spent the next 32 years in the police service, a very
challenging 32 years but also a very rewarding time. As Head
of Murder investigation in the province I found myself in the
last 2 years of my police career at 52 murder scenes, most of
them nothing to do with the conflict, they included the
murder of an 86 year old woman at one end and the murder
of a 9 month old baby at the other. Of course it could be very
easy to become disheartened with humanity but actually
what I discovered was that for every one act of wickedness I
found a thousand acts of kindness. A kindness from
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neighbours, friends and strangers that never made the
television screens. It was an example of those who had
forgotten God set side by side with those who remembered
God.
As part of this Novena of Hope I was given the theme Hope
is……healing the wounds of the past.
It made me ask myself what is hope? Is it a wishy-washy,
watery, maybe or a kind of unsure optimism? For many
people the modern idea of hope is “to wish for, or to expect,
but without certainty of the fulfilment; to crave something
very much, but with no real assurance of attaining that
desire.”
In the bible, according to the Hebrew and Greek words
translated by the word “hope” hope is an indication of
certainty. “Hope” in Scripture means “a strong and confident
belief.”
One of the world’s most famous, contemporary artists is
called Banksy. Nobody has ever seen this artist before,
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knows his real name or has even seen what he looks like. He
is a kind of a mysterious character.
But Banksy is a graffiti artist and his canvases are the streets
you and I walk on. His artwork pops up in unusual places like
on the top of buildings, sides of bridges, in underground
tunnels, it adorns greeting cards and it’s across social media.
It’s pretty much everywhere. His artwork is quite
controversial playing on political and everyday occurrences
but one thing his artwork always does is spark an opinion.
One of his best known pieces is called ‘There is Always Hope.’
This piece can be viewed on the South Bank in London. The
piece shows a little girl losing her heart shaped red balloon. It
is very simple but with a powerful message. But that’s not
the end to the piece. If you look closely along the wall in
small writing it reads, “There is always hope.”
This simple sentence stands out. First of all hope is such a
strong word. As I said earlier it is defined as, ‘to look forward
with trust, confidence and expectation.’ Then there is the
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word ‘always’, meaning, ‘for all time, forever.’ – ‘There is
always hope’
The words in this simple sentence are so powerful but the
hidden nature of it makes it all the more significant. Your
eyes are immediately drawn to the amazing graffiti picture
but you have to ‘read between the lines’ and dig that bit
deeper to find the true meaning of the picture.
In some ways our faith in Jesus Christ can be like this. On the
outside we may go to church every week, never fight with
our neighbour, and don’t steal. But like the Banksy’s piece
where you have to read between the lines to find the hidden
message this can be true of our faith. We must dig deeper to
form a relationship with Jesus and really find out who he is
and what he did for us. This takes a lot of faith and hope. The
image also evokes the idea that hope is essential.
But how does that appreciation of hope help us deal with the
wounds of the past? Well firstly, one thing we all have in
common is that we all have a past, we all experienced life in
various forms, all of us were affected by the conflict, directly
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or indirectly, some more painful than others and of course
those painful experiences continue to challenge those who
experienced that pain most.
But we also have in common that God was also in our past
and the good news is that is that I don’t believe that he
expects that we will conquer that past all by ourselves.
Maybe actually he longs to take that past and bring healing
but to do that he needs us to let go.
One thing about a career in policing is that you are never
short of experiences and I thought I might share my own
story of hope which, seemed when it started to be just
another passing event but then over a number of years that
first event led to a series of connected events – all to do with
a bowl of soup.
The story ……..
So what did I learn, firstly, we cannot run away from the fact
that people went out to murder and cause harm to other
human beings - and did so - some were killed brutally, up
close – and no remorse or sorrow has ever been felt. I even
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think of Hugh McCormac, a colleague of mine who was shot
dead outside the doors of this church 30 years ago this week.
But I am convinced that we will never be able to justice to
the scale of the injustice suffered by many people on all sides
during the conflict. Every tragic event seems to have stories,
theirs and ours. But I do have a hope that God who is the
God of hope will bring about perfect justice in the end.
For me the best I can do is to acknowledge that the other
person has a story, I don’t have to agree with it nor do I have
to say that it is right but simply to accept it is their story but
in doing so I don’t think it is not unreasonable for me to ask
them to accept that I have a story, they don’t have to say it is
right or agree with it but accept it is mine - perhaps then we
can move to talking about the future.
Turning the course of history takes a long time, but change
comes as a result of personal encounter. That is certainly
how it has been for me and I think for others. How many of
us would have dared hope that the Rev Ian Paisley and
Martin McGuiness could have developed a friendship – well
that’s what happened through personal encounter.
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In finishing, I thought I might leave you with some verses
from Seamus Heaney’s Cure at Troy which, is all about
human hurt and hope.
Human beings suffer,
They torture one another,
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
History says, don’t hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up,
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
And cures and healing wells.
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