So said Joseph Parker, a former 19th century minister in London's City Temple. I read that quotation in the little book by one of my late Methodist heroes, Sydney Callaghan "Good Grief." It was first published in 1990 just before I started training for ministry, during which time Sydney was one of my tutors. My own copy of the book, dog-eared though it was, went walkabout when I lent it to someone, and I was delighted when Sydney's widow gave me a copy of the 1999 revised edition by local publisher Colourpoint a few years back. For various reasons I am re-reading it at present, and it is interesting to note some of the changes in social mores and conventions that form the backdrop to any attempt to wrestle with grief, not least that people in Northern Ireland today are a lot more willing to talk about their grief than they were when Sydney was first writing, and expression of collective grief in a physical space or on social media has become much more common. So it might seem less likely that we need his warning that, like water and a building
"Grief must find an outlet. If it does not do so it will cause trouble later on."
But that is not entirely true. We don't always create adequate "gutters" for grief, and so it can either trickle down into the foundations or overflow in a torrent at times.
Last night I had the honour of acting as "host" on behalf of the 4 Corners Festival team for the event devised and facilitated by our colleague Mylie Brennan, entitled "The Grief of Dreams Unrealised." It came about against the background of the theme for the festival "Dreams: Visions for Belfast", based on the 60th Anniversary this year of MLK's "I have a dream" speech in Washington that inspired a nation, and indeed inspired the civil rights movement in Northern Ireland... But that movement did not immediately have its desired effect here, indeed it sparked 30 years of traumatic conflict, and even in the US the recent BLM protests have illustrated how far short of realising King's "Dream" that society is. This year also marks the 25th Anniversary of the GFA/Belfast Agreement, and the referendum that ratified it, encapsulating the hopes and dreams of some of that generation for a more peaceful, hopeful future. But it also left the grief of some, particularly "victims and survivors", unaddressed, indeed it has been widely acknowledged that had it not been for the intervention of the Women's Coalition there would have been no mention of victims in the agreement at all, illustrating the importance of the previous night's event in Clonard, honouring the place of women in peacebuilding. Shamefully 25 years on we, as a society have not remotely adequately addressed this grief, and whilst it is not solely the fault of our political leaders, the current "legacy" legislation does nothing more than pour salt on open wounds.
With all that in mind, Parker's quote with which I opened, is perhaps a radical underestimate. Especially when you add to it all, not just the personal trauma, and societal disillusion caused by lack of visionary leadership in the intervening years, but also the breakdown of trust in institutions like the Catholic Church (and by extension faith bodies in general) due to the scandals that have emerged.
Last night in the Houben Centre on the Crumlin Road, in north Belfast, 4 people told their stories, which touched on different dimensions of this. As I said in night prayer, it would dishonour them for me to re-tell them in any abbreviated form. Go and check them out yourself on our video archive on YouTube.
The Houben Centre was in many ways the perfect venue for this. Developed as a peace and reconciliation centre on the site of the Holy Cross Church which was the epicentre of so much pain, over the years, be it the 100+ people killed within a square mile of it in the course of the "Troubles", the "Holy Cross Primary School Protests" in 2003, or the more recent protracted Ardoyne Roundabout protest regarding Orange parades. But it gained an extra poignancy, given that only the day before our event a young woman killed herself on the church grounds. On a personal level this took me back 24 years and my first visit to the site, long before the development of the centre, when in short succession 3 young men took their own lives on the church grounds (including 2 brothers), as part of a spate of suicides in the area, that included young people from the youth club at Forthspring, where I had just started working.
This, together with the stories told last night, reminded me how all our stories intersect, echo each other and have the possibility of either affirming, or potentially re-awakening suppressed memories, for good or ill. To a certain extent that happened with me last night, in that by the time I stood up to deal with the farewells and Festival housekeeping, my head was so filled with what had been said and unsaid, and resonances with my own story (which is nowhere near as traumatic as some of those shared - but still valid - there is no league table in this field), that all that I had planned to say went out the window. Some of that was administrative, but that's ultimately unimportant...
Some of it, however, was also pastoral... and that's part of the reason I am writing this short reflection, because I genuinely had a night of disturbed sleep where I was giving myself a hard time for not adequately acknowledging the unearthed trauma in the room.
But there is always a danger in pastoral engagement in the area of grief and bereavement (and one of the reasons I am re-reading Sydney's book is that I have become aware of my own particular weaknesses here) of entering too personally into someone else's grief... Either intruding on their story and making it all about yourself and your relationship with the deceased or the bereaved, or of believing that you are the answer to their pain. At best, I or any other pastor, or indeed person, can play a part in someone, or a group of people, finding healing... But none of us is the Messiah, even if we think we are.
So I am not going to give myself a hard time over the things I didn't say. What I did say was to encourage people to talk over refreshments after the event, an important part of the festival that has returned for the first time this year post-covid. Because these coffee/tea conversations are not just casual encounters. They are key elements of our core purpose as a festival to get people out of their own corners, geographically, theologically, politically and indeed psychologically/emotionally, to visit new places, encounter new ideas and makes new friends. And central to that is the sharing of stories...
Thank you so much to Sara-Louise, Emily, Gordon and Karen who did that for us last night...
Shalom
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