Thought for the Day, 30 June 2009

The Rev. Rosemary Lain-Priestley

Northern Ireland is once again, it seems, at a tipping-point in its history. Two Loyalist paramilitary groups have announced the decommissioning of their weapons and a third is said to have started the process. There is a sense of cautious optimism and carefully managed hope. Of course, this is part of a very long story. The Revd Chris Hudson who acted as an intermediary with some of the paramilitaries has said that the latest news is cold comfort for those families who have suffered in the past but that it is 'the endgame' and incredibly important for the whole peace process. Of course both of these things are true.

Neither community can move on without finding ways of taking with it those whose lives have been stricken by the pain and grief that will not be decommissioned with the weapons. And so the question has been raised again this weekend: would something like the South African 'Truth and Reconciliation Commission' be helpful in Northern Ireland? A process which would allow individuals to speak of the terror they have experienced, to feel that they have really been heard and to have their perspective honoured by history.

For thousands of years people have recorded their struggles with life and their search for meaning in the form of scriptures. The scriptures are about people trying to move on: to move on in their understanding of God and of one another. To ask what God might have to say to them in their own individual circumstances and through the intertwining of their stories with those of others. To work out how to create better communities and live the more peaceful and productive lives that God desires for them.

Story-telling helps us to say how it is for us, and to recognise that we are part of a bigger picture. And the scriptures record the experiences and thoughts of those who shaped communities at grass-roots level as well as those with more obvious political power. So the biblical characters with their strengths and weaknesses, their successes and their tragedies, stay with us as we remember the overarching history of which they were a part. Jeanette Ervine, widow of the late Unionist leader David Ervine, described this weekend's news as 'The final piece in a jigsaw'. She spoke of never wanting to slide back into the darkness saying: 'We've been through it when we were very young. Just all the horror of it. You would never want anyone else to have to go through that'.

Which is why that awfulness must not be forgotten. The way to reconciliation is never through amnesia or denial. The pain and grief of the past shapes the remainder of people's lives. This truth will need to be recognised as a more peaceful future emerges and the new Northern Ireland must find a way to enable all of its people to tell their own stories.