Some thoughts at 55
Today I turn 55. I’ve seen and experienced a lot over those years and for most of them I’ve been trying to sort out how to see my life in the light of God’s narrative. I fully believe we need to learn how to locate our lives within the overarching narrative of God’s activity in the world. There’s nothing more important to me than seeing our lives come into closer alignment with God’s story. If anything keeps me awake at night it’s pondering the economic, political, social, and personal implications of what aligning with God should look like in my life and the life of the church.
I grew up in the church, but it wasn’t until I was seventeen that I began to take my faith seriously. That was 1985 and the context in which I began that journey was Belfast during the Troubles. Attending ecumenical services, involvement with peace and reconciliation with Corrymeela, Prison Fellowship, Evangelical Christians for Racial Justice. John Stott’s, “Issues Facing Christians Today” was an early influence on my thinking.
In 1987 I vividly recall engaging with the Free Presbyterians outside the Kings Hall as I was going to an ecumenical event following the Enniskillen bombing. As I tried to ask these fundamentalist protestants about loving their enemy and forgiveness the police asked me to move on because they were concerned about how they might react. I wondered if the love of Christ breaks down barriers between divided Christians, or are some hearts too hard?
I always understood that God cares for the poor. My life has allowed me to see that in person as it became real for me in the slums of Nairobi in 1995, Rwanda in 2011, Sierra Leone in 2018, ’19, ’20, and ‘23. I often reflect on the wealth and privilege I live with as a British and Irish citizen and resident of the United States. What is my responsibility for the poorest of the world’s poor when I am one of the richest of the world’s richest? How does my story align with Christ’s? When John the baptist said if we have two shirts we should give one to the person who has none, did he mean it? Did God mean it?
My journey has taken me to the side of the mass grave in Kigali, Rwanda, where a quarter of a million bodies are buried in one place. I sat and wept. The depth and power of human hatred and what we are capable of doing to one another, even to friends. I think of my grandfather and his time in the trenches of WW1, I have his service medals and dog tags, what did he experience that led him to abhor violence of any sort? I wonder what it means to bring Christ’s love, peace, and reconciliation to those who need it. How can I do that better?
Three days after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 I found myself standing at 38th and Chicago. I laid on the ground to shoot a photo of a tribute to George Floyd, only later did I realise that I was lying on the spot where he was murdered. When Scripture tells us to love our neighbour I wonder whether we will ever get over the fear of the other and finally see racism become a thing of the past?
When I sit by the ocean, that place where land and sea come together, a liminal space, a spiritual place, I find the presence of God. It is there that I most freely reflect on my story, my life and its points of connection with Christ and where our stories have diverged to my loss.
I read, I write, I teach, I preach. I’ve been doing it for years and I will keep doing it for years to come and my message will be the same, what do you need to do to bring your life into alignment with God’s narrative? A narrative of redemption, healing, and completion in which every human being bears the image of God.
