4 Corner Belfast - Ordinary
This year's 4 Corners Festival 2023 was very ordinary. There was no Archbishop of Canterbury; no video message from the Pope; no world champion athletes like Carl Frampton. This year it was simply ordinary people living who live in the community sharing their stories and that’s what made it extraordinary.
From the opening event at the Skainos Centre to the final sip of coffee in St. John’s parish hall, the week was extraordinarily ordinary. If I was to name the speakers from the week most of them would be unknown to you, as they were unknown to me. Yet from the moment Julieann Moran in the opening event spoke about our relationship with one another in terms of “siblinghood” I knew this week would be special.
Siblinghood, that term stuck with me throughout the week as I listened to the hopes and dreams of young working class protestants in the immersive Present Future exhibit. It stuck with me as I walked through the photo exhibit on homelessness at the Artcetera studio where I was forced to answer the question, “Are the homeless my siblings?” As a Christian the answer is clear - yes.
There were stories of hope, stories of forgiveness, stories of helping drag bodies out of a building in the aftermath of an IRA bomb and the trauma that caused. All the stories from ordinary people were a reminder that we’re not there yet - we haven’t arrived - we are on a journey - we are works in progress - imperfect, with many blindspots, we are siblings and need each other.
On Friday night Dana Masters sat down with Steve Stockman. An African American woman, living just outside of Belfast, the wife of a pastor in the Vineyard church, their kids attend a Catholic school because it’s the local school, the granddaughter of a civil rights activist, a beautiful eclectic mix of traditions and culture in one moment. Oh, and if you didn’t know, she sings. She really sings. As she closed out the evening she sang an acapella rendition of Lift Every Voice and Sing. As she sang, “God of our weary years, / God of our silent tears, / Thou who hast brought us thus far on the way; / Thou who hast by Thy might, / Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.” I wept.
I wept because my homeland has come a long way, but there’s still so much work to do. I wept because my adopted home still struggles with so much racial injustice and I thought of the images I shot at George Floyd Square a couple of days after his murder. I wept, because sometimes we need to weep. The church doesn’t usually lament well, we don’t like to sing the blues, we prefer pop music even when the blues is more appropriate.
A week of ordinary people telling their stories, being together, bringing hope to the city.
There are lots of ordinary people in Belfast. Unseen, unheard people, created in the image of God. Many of them are hurting. 4 Corners is a great event, it is like breakfast. It fills you up to start the day. The real question is what will you do with the day ahead? Will you work hard enough in the morning to be hungry for lunch? In the afternoon so you’re ready for dinner?
Change will not come about because we get together with like minded folks for one week a year. We need to come alongside those whose stories are still unheard or who still can’t tell their story. We are siblings, one and all.
Embrace the ordinary.
