Bonfire Bonanza!

Yeah! For the pyromaniacs of Belfast we have had not one but two nights of bonfires this year. Due to the fact that the 12th fell on a Sunday, and therefore the Twelfth Parades are actually on the 13th, complete confusion reigned among loyalist communities (nothing new there though) as to what night the traditional bonfires should be lit. And so in our own area we had the children's bonfire on Saturday night and the big one the following night just after midnight. But talking to people about this over the past few weeks has shown just how far the traditions of the Twelfth have drifted from the Orange Order's professed Christian origins.

The bonfires have never been an official part of the Orange Celebrations, indeed they are simply an adoption of a widely held tradition here in Ireland going back to pagan times, that whenever you want to mark a celebration you pile up whatever you can grab and burn it! The name reputedly comes from "Bone-fire" - the fire in the ancient Celtic celebration of Samhain when animal bones were burned to ward off evil spirits... It was a word later applied to the fires used to burn witches in the middle ages and martyrs from all religious traditions in the reformation... So I suppose since the political and cultural tensions in Northern Ireland could be argued to be the last vestiges of the reformation wrangles over religious affiliation, they are as good a way to mark one of the most divisive festivals of the year!

The exact relation of the bonfires to the Twelfth is a bit vague... Some tie them to the beacon fires lit to announce the breaking of the boom in the siege of Derry, or another set used to announce the landing of King William in Carrickfergus, but essentially they are the marker that the day of celebrations of the Twelfth are beginning. Hence it was always previously the case that where the parade was happening on the Thirteenth they were lit just after midnight on the Twelfth/Thirteenth. As a child everyone I knew understood that. But that was a long time ago now... And even in the few years since the 12th last fell on a Sunday the religious ground has changed in Northern Ireland.

Many people I've been talking to cannot understand why the parades aren't happening on a Sunday, never mind why the 11th night bonfires would effectively be lit at 12.01am on the 13th.

"First you won't let us have the bonfires on the 11th... Now you want us to wait until after the Sunday is over... It's like living with the Taliban!" "What's the church got to do with with it anyway?" said one person to me. "Why won't the church let us have the Twelfth on the Twelfth? They're destroying our traditions!"

But then again, that is in a community where a child of 9 asked me a few weeks ago whether church would be on on Sunday? There is little understanding of church culture, never mind how that in turn intersects with Orange culture... Most people gathered around bonfires, either on Saturday or Sunday will have nothing to do with the Orange Order, and many of those marching tomorrow will have little to do with any church no matter what the "Duties of an Orangeman" says.

I have to take my hat off to those who have managed the local bonfire this year... They have done almost everything by the book, working hard with the local community to reduce inconvenience and anxiety, and have avoided the "tradition" of burning tyres (where, o where else in the world would poisoning your own community be seen as a tradition to uphold!). They haven't quite gone as far as the more eco-friendly "beacons" being piloted in some areas of Belfast, but at least they have discouraged dumping (as on sign so eloquently put it "Wood Only! No Crap!) and encouraged local residents to report illegal fly-tipping. One friend suggested that communities shouldn't be allowed to burn a forest until they have planted one, and while as an environmentally-minded chap I am singing off the same hymn-sheet, I'm prepared to take my victories where I can, and move on one challenge at a time.

A few years ago a colleague who had brought a group to visit the local bonfire in Sandy Row where I was then working, commented afterwards that he thought that he and I should engage in a little bit of social entrepreneurship, planning 11th night bonfires for local communities; arranging more environmentally friendly fires, hiring entertainers and caterers, organising foreign cultural tours and even staging the once ubiquitous "shows of force". On that memorable occasion in Sandy Row the latter was more of a show of farce - being unable to read their prepared statement because the lighting wasn't good enough, the guns being unable to fire, and being unable to start their getaway car, and having to push it into the fire before plunging into the crowds, where, despite their balaclava concealing their identities, local wags shouted "Great show Davy! That'll put the fear of God into the republicans!"

I hope that with the loyalist decommissioning announced earlier this month there will be fewere such shows of force, or farce. But I still think there's a business opportunity going a begging there...

So by the time this post is scheduled to go online I'll have done my usual tour of the local fires... Probably the only person over 12 without a can of beer in my hand. I didn't bother on Saturday night... it was too wet and I was still preparing for my Sunday services, so that I would be ready for those hoards of Orangemen who would be attending their local church before parading to celebrate Biblical Protestantism...

ps. Credit to Stu on xetera for the photo... not of our local fire (note the tyres)... I tried to take a photo, but my memory was full...

Cheers

The Death of the Dipper

A monologue by Herod Antipas inspired by today's Gospel reading from the Lectionary in Mark 6: 14-29.

Why!? Why could the damned dipper not keep his nose out of my personal life?
And why could Herodias not simply ignore him? What harm could he do once I’d locked him away?
Yes, he went on and on about the immorality of our relationship, but what did she expect? He’s a religious fanatic… But if he is one of God’s prophets I don’t want his blood on my hands as well as my marital sins…
But she didn’t care… She wanted his head on a plate… Literally. And she knew just how to get it… The same way she got me in the first place…
I’ve always been a sucker for a bit of fine young female flesh… I’d taken her even though she was both my own niece and my brother’s wife… Keep it in the family is my motto…
But she then dangled her own daughter as bait to get what she wanted… Just one dance and I was slavering at the mouth… I offered her half my Kingdom… and I would have given it to her too (the dusty, deserted half that is…) But oh no… she had been well trained by that scheming witch of a mother of hers… All she wanted was to have the Dipper decapitated…
So what could I do? At that moment, my whole Kingdom lay in the balance, not just half of it… Everyone at the party was watching me for the first sign of weakness. So I couldn’t lose face… I couldn’t show fear…
Yet if truth be told, I feared that man more than any other man on earth… with the possible exception of my own father…
His words were not just the words of a religious nutcase… they came with power and authority… An authority that I would give more than half my Kingdom to possess… I wanted to hear more of what he had to say…
But now he’ll never say anything again…
Although some are saying that he has risen from the dead… That he is preaching again up by the sea of Galilee… Preaching and healing people…
But men don’t rise from the dead, do they?
It would be good to start again though, wouldn’t it… That’s what John said he was doing, dipping people in the river… washing away their sins so they could start again… But what river is deep enough to wash away my sins? To wash away the guilt of the dipper’s death… Not the Jordan certainly… Maybe it would take the whole of the Sea of Galilee… Maybe I’ll go and see if the man preaching and healing up there is the dipper come back from the dead… See if he will wash away my sins… Or maybe I won’t… Because if Herodias hears that he’s back, she’ll not give up until he’s dead again…

© David A. Campton 2009

Selah

Love and Faithfulness Meet in the Street

In my liturgical illiteracy, I got my lectionary weeks mixed up... But anyway, as a result here is a responsive version of Psalm 85 that I adapted for worship last week, when it is actually set for this week... (By the way the picture is by an artist called John August Swanson and was inspired by the liturgical use of Psalm 85)

Listen to what the Lord God says;
He promises peace to his people, his saints.
See how near his salvation is for those who fear him,
his glory will dwell in our land.
Love and faithfulness meet in the street;
righteousness and peace embrace and kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
righteousness pours down from heaven.
The Lord indeed gives goodness and beauty,
our land responds with a bounteous harvest.
Righteousness strides out before him
and prepares the way for his coming.

From Psalm 85: 8-13

I wonder whether love and faithfulness, righteousness and peace will meet each other in the streets of Belfast over these next few days?

Selah

Redundant...

One of the things that men in the post-industrial western world have had difficulty coming to terms with is the whole idea of redundancy. Where the man was once the bread-winner, it is now often the woman who is the earner in working class areas, as the traditional "female" jobs cleaning and cooking etc. are still there while the male preserves of heavy industry and unskilled labour have contracted. Given that many men of previous generations defined themselves by their jobs (my own father left for work before 7 am and often didn't return home until 8 pm) this has had profound psychological effects as well as economic and sociological ones.

With the backing of the welfare state, many women don't see the obvious need for having a man around, even if he is the father of her children, and some of them are probably better off without the men in question, as they contribute little more than sperm to the making of a child. But that's part of the joys of sexual reproduction... the male produces billions of little swimmers for most of his lifetime so can affort to make his contribution and move on, but the female, having a finite supply of eggs and having the inconvenience of incubating any resultant embryo in her own body has a higher level of reproductive investment in each child. Its generally to her advantage if the male sticks around and contributes to the upbringing of the child, but if he is a deadbeat then perhaps she is better off without him. However, what might be better for the mother is not necessarily better for the child or indeed for society, because research seems to indicate, and personal anecdotal observations would back this up, that the lack of a positive male role model in the lives of many young boys is a significant factor in the social breakdown of certain communities.

But add to this mix the news few days ago that researchers in Newcastle have successfully produced sperm cells from undifferentiated stem cells in the laboratory, and it could soon be that the whole male sex is completely redundant.

Cheers

Shameless Advertising... In a Very Good Cause

Just incase you can't read the small print... Phone 90489822 for further details...
Its part of the madness that is our summer family Fun Week, with activities every day from Monday to Friday for 5-14 year olds.
There's a teddy bear's picnic for toddlers on Tuesday evening, and Hullabaloo Theatre Company for the same group on the Wednesday at 10.30am,
At the same time on Wednesday the Senior members of our community are invited to a Silk Screen Painting workshop. Seniors are also invited to join us for Coffee, Boccia and Indoor Curling on Friday at 10.30am.
Dads and Kids are encouraged to go orienteering on Wednesday night, while the whole family are invited to take part in Its a Knock Out on Thursday night, and go on a bus trip to Carnfunnock on Saturday, before returning for a barbeque back at the church and the finals of the Annual DFCI Soap Box Derby.
Everything then comes to a climax in the Sunday morning Family Week Celebration at 11am in the church.
After that I'm running away for a rest...

cheers

I'm Alive and I'm Here Forever...

Now right at the outset let me make one thing clear. I am not, never have been, and am never likely to be a fan of Michael Jackson's music... I suppose that's a function of my age as well as my musical taste. Actually when I initially read about his death I was trawling through the internet and was more distressed when I learned that another Michael Jackson, the famed "Beer Hunter" had died two years ago without me realising it. So I really didn't get sucked into the hype concerning the King of Pop's death. I could understand why the media did, because they have been feeding off him for years, whether because of his musical output, or more recently because of his moderately bizarre lifestyle, but I was left on the outside looking in with no real interest. Until yesterday and I caught some of the footage concerning the mega-memorial at the Staples Centre in LA.

Now I thought that Princess Diana's funeral was over the top, with her instant popular beatification (and don't start me on Elton John's destruction of his own song Candle in the Wind) but that was as nothing compared with this extravaganza. I haven't watched the whole thing... life is too short, but the bits that I have seen leave me wide-eyed in amazement. Not least what seemed to be the tag line for the event "I'm alive and I'm here forever..." shown beside a picture of Mr. Jackson.

Since I am not a Jacksonophile I don't know if this is a quote from a song or whether he actually said this at some point, (I'm sure someone will put me right) but certainly the implication is one of his eternal presence with his fans... Perhaps it is referring to his music, but there is the hint of something more, something almost messianic. This was, at times present in his performances... notably the overblown performance of "Earth Song" (I think) at the Brits, when Jarvis Cocker famously mooned in front of him... At the time I felt like cheering Mr. Cocker.

But all through the Memorial yesterday there seemed to be a blurring of the edges as to what was happening and who was being revered... From the opening when Andrae Crouch led the rendition of "Soon and very soon we are going to see the King" before the "King of Pop's" casket was wheeled in... Through Queen Latifah's reading of Maya Angelou's reference to him as a "bright and shining star"... To the general portrayal of Michael as a reconciler of races and healer of the world.

Michael Jackson DID do a lot of good that the media might all too quickly forget as sordid old stories are dragged out in the understanding that you cannot libel the dead, and it is not fair that, as Shakespeare says "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." Also I have been involved in many a funeral or memorial service where I know that the deceased was being painted in a better light than they were seen in life. However, what happened yesterday in the Staples Centre was of a different order all together. If Princess Diana's funeral was over the top, this was down the other side and away off to the far horizon. Yes, it was showbiz royalty saying farewell to their King in the only way they know how to honour someone (and in performance terms it seems like it was a great show), but to me there was something truly, deeply, profoundly idolatrous in yesterday's events.

But through all of the glitz, the glitter and the emotion came the simple yet profound words of Pastor Lucious Smith. In the midst of a prayer that was still filled with hyperbole, he reminded the audience that "The King of Pop must bow his knee to the King of Kings."

So must we all...

Shalom

Comic Book Forgiveness

4 years ago today a series of 4 suicide bombs took the lives of 52 people in central London. Today a memorial to those victims was officially unveiled in Hyde Park. One of those involved in commissioning the memorial was Julie Nicholson, whose daughter Jennifer was one of the victims. Previously Julie was in the news when she quit her appointment as an Anglican parish priest, because she was unable to forgive those who had taken her daughter's life. I've written about her before, both on this blog and elsewhere, as an illustration of both the difficulty and importance of forgiveness. Sometimes as Christians we are very glib about the whole thing, yet it is central to the Christian message.

It is also central to the plot of Spiderman 3 which I was watching with my son Ciaran earlier this week. There are many references to forgiveness in the script, and a central plot point is where Spiderman escapes the clutches of an evil alien symbiote, which is almost a metaphor for Peter Parker's inability to forgive, in the belfry of a church, clearly a nod at least to the role of Christian faith and practice in forgiveness and vice versa.

There are weaknesses in the film's understanding of forgiveness, but then, there are HUGE weaknesses in many Christian's understanding of forgiveness so let's not be too hard on a comic-book movie for dodgy theology! For example, ultimately Spiderman forgives the man who murdered his uncle (the Sandman), only when it becomes clear that he is clearly repentant and hadn't meant to kill him in the first place (and there were all kinds of personal circumstances that put him in that position in the first place). But what about when the person is unrepentant (or like the suicide bombers, no-longer around to repent of anything), carried out the act in a premeditated fashion, and had no real justification for their actions? Does Jesus' instructions for us to forgive apply then? I believe it does. And perhaps more powerfully so... Forgiveness is not saying that we understand why something happened. Forgiveness is not saying that what happened was OK. In fact it is the opposite. Something only NEEDS forgiven when it was NOT OK, and part of forgiveness is saying that the action being forgiven WAS wrong. But it is removing oneself from the pursuit of vengeance for that act. Handing that over to God. It is an attempt to remove oneself from the power of the perpetrator by saying that you are not going to remain a victim and that you have the power to forgive them. It isn't easy, and in many if not most cases, we will need the help of God to do it.

I was looking for a video clip of Spiderman forgiving the Sandman, but failed miserably. I did however, find this mini-movie using Spiderman 3 trailers and some "high quality" lego animation to explore the theology of forgiveness for younger ones... There's a few bits that I wouldn't agree with (like the reference to letting them off the hook at about 3.10...) and its majorly cheesy in bits... But I've seen worse and I've certainly read worse on the theology of forgiveness.

Cheers