Being Irish

Today I feel a bit ashamed to be Irish. Even though, being of Ulster Presbyterian stock, I could disassociate myself from dark misdemeanours of the Roman Catholic clergy in the Republic. I could join others in pointing the finger - that’s them, not us. But I feel tainted.

I feel tainted, when the world’s media glares on my island, and at an institutional abandonment of the principles of truth and light and care, in preference for lies and darkness and self-service. And all that in the supposed interests of God and His church.

I feel tainted by a shared humanity. And a deep knowledge within myself that, I too harbour the potential to do harm and to cover up the harm with lies, and under the cloak of religiosity and good works.

“Men have always loved darkness, instead of light,” says John the Apostle, “because their deeds were evil”.

I suppose what angers me, though, is that when something like this happens, and there is much apologising and wringing of hands, there’s also a kind of attitude of “let’s put this thing behind us, and get on with the business of managing our world better – after all, we’re not as bad as all that, are we”.

Why don’t we ever listen. Why don’t we ever see. Stories like this, and all the other sin-filled stories that fill the newspapers this morning, only go to show the truth of what was told long ago, that

..............................................The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,

and desperately wicked

We are all infected and impure with sin.

When we display our righteous deeds,

they are nothing but filthy rags.

Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall,

and our sins sweep us away like the wind.

But, God who is rich in mercy, because of his great love for us,

made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in our sins—

for, it is by grace you have been saved.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,

that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

From Jeremiah 17, Isaiah 64, Ephesians 2 and John 3

Season of Mists

Morning. 7am. No birdsong. Muffled noise of cars from the northern Highway. A plane rising from Lisbon Airport. The usual sounds of the morning air silenced by a white shroud of November mist sweeping down the river to the ocean.

Its like this most mornings these days and reminds me that life is not always as clear as we would like it to be. And once the mist has cleared, which often happens around midday, the colours of day take on an amazing brilliance, and it seems the air smells sweeter.

We’ve just had a weekend of fog also in the calendar. Halloween on Oct 31 followed by All Saints Day, Nov 1st and All Souls Day, Nov 2nd . The one, a confusion of children’s parties thinly overlying a somewhat more sinister underworld, the other two days, vaguely understood religious traditions to do with the dead passing through on their way to Paradise.

It’s a pity that so little of the real majesty of a God who has made a sure and tested way of finding eternal hope and an escape from this world of sin and uncertainty is not more visible in these cultural events that dot the calendar. It’s easy to pass off Halloween parties as so much innocent fun and those who would say otherwise as spoilsports, but what if this world of ghouls and witches is not so make believe as they make out. Is it not so much better to celebrate the reality of God’s great rescue plan

He has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.

....................................................................................................................Colossians 1:12