Thursday, September 20, 2012

Pancakes, Spoons, and Hills

Highlights from my first full week of work:

 The Link Family and Community Centre

Three days a week, I get to hang out with youth for a few hours during the afternoon drop-in sessions at The Link.  Local teenagers have the chance to shoot some pool, play some video games, check their Facebook, or chat with friends (maybe while chowing down on a pile of chips (fries) from the Chippy around the corner).
To be perfectly honest, I was really nervous to start this work placement. But little by little, I've grown to know the guys in drop-in a wee bit more each day.
My favorite part of drop-in BY FAR is when I lead a "Cookery" session.  I love messing around in the kitchen, and Cookery is an excellent way to teach some basic cooking/baking skills, have positive interactions with a few of the kids at a time, and then share our creation with the rest of drop-in!  So far, we've made chocolate-chip pancakes, toasties (grilled sandwiches), and spaghetti bolognese (fancy-talk for spaghetti and meatballs)! Mmmmm! It's a fun give-and-take: they teach me about words and types of food that I've never heard of before, and I tell them about the similar American version.
Another part of my role at The Link is helping with the Young women's group that meets once a week in the evening.  These girls are a HOOT!  The first night I was hanging out with them, I taught them a classic (also slightly violent and rowdy) card game that I learned when I was their age: SPOONS!

It's a fast-paced race to avoid being the lone player left without a precious spoon.  They love it and keep requesting that we play! I'm all spooned-out by the end of the night.
We also started our Zumba sessions this week!  Tons of fun, and lots of making up your own moves when you can't follow the instructor.
Looking forward to getting to know everyone more as the weeks go on at The Link!


Regent Street Presbyterian Church

My main job at Regent Street Presbyterian so far has been learning names and trying to remember them! But I'm catching on fairly quickly and this congregation reminds me a lot of my church home in Florida.  Everyone I've met, staff and lay person alike, has been so encouraging and supportive.
I've already had the opportunity to help coordinate a candle-lighting reflection time during one of the evening praise services, meet lots of youth during Sunday morning Bible Class, and tag along on some pastoral visits.  In the future, I'll become even more involved in the Youth Fellowship team, and even lead some of the Children's Moments at the front of the church on Sundays!  I feel so blessed to be welcomed so warmly into the life of this congregation.


Climbing Cave Hill










 Nature! Exercise! Getting our fingers in some clay and grass! Yeah! Woo!


The view from the top -- awesome!















~

Despite the similarities in the Northern Irish and U.S. cultures, I'm regularly reminded that the life experiences of those around me has been totally different than my own.  Sometimes, while hiking a giant hill or worshiping in a church or watching Gilmore Girls on T.V., it's easy to forget about the deeply embedded divisiveness in the country I now live in. 
Many lives and perspectives are still broken from the past, and there is a generation growing up now who is inheriting the burden of their parent's conflict.  A conflict they don't fully understand yet.  And yet many young people take up their parent's "cause" as their own, even if they've never had any personal interaction or conversation with "the other side" (i.e. Catholics -- in Ireland, a term having less to do with religion and more to do with political persuasion).  I am filled with grief when I think that this is the reality kids in this country are dealing with.  Maybe all we can do is challenge the prejudices we encounter, and hope that the challenge makes at least one or two stop and think about what they're participating in.
There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.  -- Galatians 3:28

Monday, September 10, 2012

Today

Dappled trees on a rare sunny day outside of Belfast


"It is a moment of light surrounded on all sides by darkness and oblivion.  In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another just like it and there will never be another just like it again.  It is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth.  It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death.  If you were aware how precious it is, you could hardly live through it.  Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.
'This is the day which the Lord has made,' says the 118th Psalm. 'Let us rejoice and be glad in it.' Or weep and be sad in it for that matter. The point is to see it for what it is because it will be gone before you know it. If you waste it, it is your life that you're wasting.  If you look the other way, it may be the moment you've been waiting for always that you're missing.
All other days have either disappeared into darkness and oblivion or not yet emerged from them. Today is the only day there is."  -- Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life
This devotional meditation struck a real chord in me, and I think Buechner poetically reminds us of a truth that we oftentimes forget.  It is especially easy to forget here in Belfast, when many of my days are so filled with planning ahead and dizzying new sights, people, and ways of living that I overlook how precious my time here is.  How irreplaceable.  I pray that starting now, today, I will be mindful, and I won't take any of it for granted.   

Small moments in my first precious days of Belfast
 
Wild blackberries. Sour and seedy!
First day of work: AM meeting, PM sailing
Making tomato soup from scratch... Looks gross! 


Ehh...  a little less scary after doctoring it up!


 A Litany of Thanksgiving
Today, I make my Sacrament of Thanksgiving
I begin with the simple things of my days:
Fresh air to breathe
Cool water to drink
The taste of food
The protection of houses and clothes
The comforts of home
For these I make an act of Thanksgiving this day.

-- Howard Thurman

Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Belfast turned me into a Baby

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." 
-- Howard Zinn
This quote was shared in a documentary about a particularly awful day during the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland called "Bloody Friday".  Food for thought.

In-country orientation is over, and there has been lots to process.  Northern Ireland initially strikes me as a country of contrasts.

Land of extraordinary natural beauty (and extraordinarily friendly people):


(And SHEEP!)

 Land of open wounds and conflict:

(Pictures taken inside a car -- sorry for the poor quality!)
(Murals located in East Belfast)



















While I've learned more about the history, culture, and geography of Northern Ireland than I thought was possible in a week, I feel far from comfortable trying to explain the complexity of the world I now inhabit.  Somewhere in the middle of our first week, I didn't feel dissimilar to an infant -- pink and bug-eyed and ignorant -- trying to process and understand this fascinating and thorny world for the first time, totally dependent on others to take care of me and teach me everything I needed to know.
I'm not quite so overwhelmed with information anymore, although there is still plenty to learn.  Mostly, I'm so glad to be in this place, with its long, long memory and its capacity for warm, warm welcome.  And we have been welcomed so graciously by our neighbors, placement supervisors, new congregations, and our site coordinator and his family.
I'm still a liiiittle nervy about starting my work for the first time tomorrow, but we were reminded today that sometimes the best way to learn is by jumping head-first into the deep end and figuring it out as you go along!

Our first task in approaching
                  Another people
                  Another culture
                  Another religion
Is to take off our shoes
For the place we are approaching is holy.

(Quote from the illustrious "Unknown" -- way to go, Unknown!)