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Back in Belfast

Wednesday  27^th January

Back in Ireland produced mixed feelings. It’s a place that I both love and loath.  Its positives far outweighing its negatives. I continue to care deeply for this land and its people which I have carried in my heart for over 20 years and which won’t go away.

My first night here and I am back in the company of some great friends.  Ken and Claire have organised a gathering of people in Belfast who are interested in the Community and its way for living.  We took over a café near the university and a delightful 2 ½ hours was spent sharing and engaging with one another on issues of faith, Community, culture and church.  I see and sense very clearly that here is a vibrant, stimulating and serious minded bunch of individuals, the majority of whom are much younger than me.  Their love of God is undiminished but their struggle with the church and unease with what is happening in society needs a safe context to explore these things in.

As I reflect on the delightful evening together, seeing the lights go on in people’s lives when I share the Community’s story and the values that have shaped our vocation, I sense that here might be the beginnings of something significant.

For many years, our Community’s presence in Ireland, North and South, has been one of quietly praying, visiting, sharing and serving together with supporting individuals and groups.  But here in this group is the potential for an authentic and creative new expression of what the Northumbria Community might look like in Northern Ireland.  Not wishing to raise a false dawn of expectation (which Northern Ireland has been plagued with for years) I nevertheless feel that there could be some real connections and the forming of an expression of Community with these folks.