Hope Is Healing the Wounds of the Past

Hope is……healing the wounds of the past.

Those of you who know Father Brian will know that he has this disarming ability to engage you in a conversation and before you know it you have agreed to something that perhaps you might not otherwise do – that’s why I find myself standing here today. I suppose one thing about accepting the invitation was that it forced me to think about the topic more deeply.

When I asked Fr Brian what was expected, in his inimitable style he said ‘sure it’s easy, you simply talk and they listen.’ My only plea therefore to all of you is that if you finish before I do that you let me know.

I should also tell you that I have been called many a name in my career, some nice and some less than complementary but I have to say when I saw ‘preacher’ on the leaflet that was a first.

As Fr Brian said I am currently the CEO of Co-operation Ireland, an organisation that has been working for more than 30 years across this island building mutual respect and

1 understanding between the peoples of these islands. As part of work at one level we were closely involved with the State visit of HM The Queen to Ireland and the return visit of President Higgins to the UK. As part of that visit Co- operation Ireland held an event at Windsor Castle which had the theme of reconciliation. We were also the organisation which facilitated the first meeting between, HM The Queen and the dFM Martin McGuiness. At the community level we are involved in a range of programmes helping to building bridges between communities.

For those of you who don’t know me, I was born and spent my formative years in Enniskillen. I was a reluctant pupil at St Michaels College but had the good fortune to have Father Peadar Livingstone who as well as teaching history, religion and Irish was my careers teacher. Now he was either a visionary or he was looking rid of me pretty quickly but somehow he persuaded me to join the police – the RUC at the time. Looking back, at 16 I was largely unaware of the politics of the day being more interested in following George Best or indeed the girls from the Collegiate School – not that I

2 had anything against Mount Lourdes, simply that the Collegiate girls were close by.

It is often said to me that it must have been a courageous thing to do – to join the police at that time, but in hindsight I think my parents were the courageous ones, it would have been very easy for them to say, join the Garda, or the Met, or Scottish police, but they didn’t. My grandmother, who was from around the corner in Monea lived with us at the time and whilst I don’t recall a lot of discussion about the dangers of joining the police I do recall her wisdom or wit when she said ‘well if he is born to be shot he will never be drowned’.

I suppose in a funny sort of way that was her hope, a hope that was akin to trust and a confident expectation that things would be alright. Perhaps that hope was also important because it made the reality less difficult to bear. Somehow if we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear the trials and tribulations of today.

3 That same hope allows us to hold, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, just around the corner.

No doubt that same hope allowed my grandmother to believe that I would be safe. I don’t think it was a sense of hope that was the same thing as optimism. It wasn’t the conviction that something would turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

I spent the next 32 years in the police service, a very challenging 32 years but also a very rewarding time. As Head of Murder investigation in the province I found myself in the last 2 years of my police career at 52 murder scenes, most of them nothing to do with the conflict, they included the murder of an 86 year old woman at one end and the murder of a 9 month old baby at the other. Of course it could be very easy to become disheartened with humanity but actually what I discovered was that for every one act of wickedness I found a thousand acts of kindness. A kindness from

4 neighbours, friends and strangers that never made the television screens. It was an example of those who had forgotten God set side by side with those who remembered God.

As part of this Novena of Hope I was given the theme Hope is……healing the wounds of the past.

It made me ask myself what is hope? Is it a wishy-washy, watery, maybe or a kind of unsure optimism? For many people the modern idea of hope is “to wish for, or to expect, but without certainty of the fulfilment; to crave something very much, but with no real assurance of attaining that desire.”

In the bible, according to the Hebrew and Greek words translated by the word “hope” hope is an indication of certainty. “Hope” in Scripture means “a strong and confident belief.”

One of the world’s most famous, contemporary artists is called Banksy. Nobody has ever seen this artist before,

5 knows his real name or has even seen what he looks like. He is a kind of a mysterious character.

But Banksy is a graffiti artist and his canvases are the streets you and I walk on. His artwork pops up in unusual places like on the top of buildings, sides of bridges, in underground tunnels, it adorns greeting cards and it’s across social media. It’s pretty much everywhere. His artwork is quite controversial playing on political and everyday occurrences but one thing his artwork always does is spark an opinion.

One of his best known pieces is called ‘There is Always Hope.’ This piece can be viewed on the South Bank in London. The piece shows a little girl losing her heart shaped red balloon. It is very simple but with a powerful message. But that’s not the end to the piece. If you look closely along the wall in small writing it reads, “There is always hope.”

This simple sentence stands out. First of all hope is such a strong word. As I said earlier it is defined as, ‘to look forward with trust, confidence and expectation.’ Then there is the

6 word ‘always’, meaning, ‘for all time, forever.’ – ‘There is always hope’

The words in this simple sentence are so powerful but the hidden nature of it makes it all the more significant. Your eyes are immediately drawn to the amazing graffiti picture but you have to ‘read between the lines’ and dig that bit deeper to find the true meaning of the picture.

In some ways our faith in Jesus Christ can be like this. On the outside we may go to church every week, never fight with our neighbour, and don’t steal. But like the Banksy’s piece where you have to read between the lines to find the hidden message this can be true of our faith. We must dig deeper to form a relationship with Jesus and really find out who he is and what he did for us. This takes a lot of faith and hope. The image also evokes the idea that hope is essential.

But how does that appreciation of hope help us deal with the wounds of the past? Well firstly, one thing we all have in common is that we all have a past, we all experienced life in various forms, all of us were affected by the conflict, directly

7 or indirectly, some more painful than others and of course those painful experiences continue to challenge those who experienced that pain most.

But we also have in common that God was also in our past and the good news is that is that I don’t believe that he expects that we will conquer that past all by ourselves. Maybe actually he longs to take that past and bring healing but to do that he needs us to let go.

One thing about a career in policing is that you are never short of experiences and I thought I might share my own story of hope which, seemed when it started to be just another passing event but then over a number of years that first event led to a series of connected events – all to do with a bowl of soup.

The story ……..

So what did I learn, firstly, we cannot run away from the fact that people went out to murder and cause harm to other human beings - and did so - some were killed brutally, up close – and no remorse or sorrow has ever been felt. I even

8 think of Hugh McCormac, a colleague of mine who was shot dead outside the doors of this church 30 years ago this week.

But I am convinced that we will never be able to justice to the scale of the injustice suffered by many people on all sides during the conflict. Every tragic event seems to have stories, theirs and ours. But I do have a hope that God who is the God of hope will bring about perfect justice in the end.

For me the best I can do is to acknowledge that the other person has a story, I don’t have to agree with it nor do I have to say that it is right but simply to accept it is their story but in doing so I don’t think it is not unreasonable for me to ask them to accept that I have a story, they don’t have to say it is right or agree with it but accept it is mine - perhaps then we can move to talking about the future.

Turning the course of history takes a long time, but change comes as a result of personal encounter. That is certainly how it has been for me and I think for others. How many of us would have dared hope that the Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness could have developed a friendship – well that’s what happened through personal encounter.

9 In finishing, I thought I might leave you with some verses from Seamus Heaney’s Cure at Troy which, is all about human hurt and hope.

Human beings suffer, They torture one another, They get hurt and get hard. No poem or play or song Can fully right a wrong Inflicted and endured.

History says, don’t hope On this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime The longed-for tidal wave Of justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme.

So hope for a great sea-change On the far side of revenge. Believe that further shore Is reachable from here. Believe in miracles And cures and healing wells.