A New Dawn

Today was the first full day of the new Northern Ireland Assembly. Yesterday was a day for the show when the First Minister and the Deputy First Minister took the oath of office. we are now enetering a day that many have hoped and prayed for but few actually believed would arrive. While the big man did his best not to shake the hand of Martin McGuinness, in the face of all the others hands he did shake and all the smiles and the jokes there lies a very big challenge but this was a day that the Rev Dr Ian Paisley has longed hoped for. I do not believe that any other person would have been able to deliver and yet it would not have happened , either, if David Trimble and many others had not had the courage to make the first moves- moves that proved suicidal for him!

What do Christians make of it all? If you had asked me thirty years ago I think I would have given a different answer. I am very aware that if this had happened thirty years ago, if the first power-sharing executitive had been allowed to work many , many lives would have been saved. Yes there are questions in mnay hearts and heads about what all this says about and to the many victims but we are all victims of our own responses- responses which failed to go beyond the re-action and the response. Today it seems all so obvious that we all have to share the space that is Northern Ireland. It seems all too obvious that "jaw, jaw is better than war, war". The Christian has to say "blessed are the peace makers" but down the road lies the challenge of working out our identity and our response to those who do do agree with our political aspirations. It is still unfair of those in mainland [what a terrible expression] Britain that we have to share power with the two extremes when the Liberal Democrats in Scotland will not go into governement with the Scottish Nationalists or Fianna Fail wil not share government with Sein Fein[ or so they say now!!]. It still seems wrong to give executitive positions to those who neither accept the state as it is nor have really and trully repented of past violence resulting in people being killed and injured, both civilian and military. Yet it is also wrong to hold on to power when 40-45% are in the other part of the community who have felt, not without cause, discriminated against for centuries. Northern Ireland has been the victim of pride and passion but we hope that is all going to change but not without more pain. As a Christian I have come to believe that the kingdom of god is much more important than any political philosophy be it gren or orange. I have also come to believe that being a presbyterian Christian is better than being a Christian Presbyterian. I am a Christian who happens to be a Presbyterian and I am an Irishman, perhaps actually an Ulsterman who hapens to be living in the United Kingdom but who has also lived in the irish Republic