If you know Northern Ireland then you know of the Troubles, the times and the ways religion, nationalism and political ideology pulled people apart and broke them to pieces.
Corrymeela seeks to put those who have been pulled apart back together, and seeks to make peace between those broken to pieces.
One of the members of Corrymeela, poet Padraig
Ô Tuama, has become one of my favorite writers.
In his astonishing, beautiful book of poems Sorry For Your Troubles, you'll find these words in the small, lyrical essay "Bury the Hatchet" -
The folks at Corrymeela have long believed that human encounter between people who believe and think different things can have a transformative effect.
Transformative because it is more courageous to have an argument with a person in a room than never entering that room in the first place.
Transformative because when you can be in a place of beauty it might be that your mind can be open to new and creative possibilities, and because to lighten the shadow of our land, we must all speak of our own shadows.
Transformative because when you have an ethic that challenges scapegoating, you may be able to open up a way of reflecting on your own shortcomings.
Transformative because they believe in the power of the shared table and the poured cup of tea.
How we need to be this and do this in our here and now.
Padraig’s words inspired this small story from me -
She held his hand.
'For someone so small and frail, he has big, strong hands,' she thought as her fingers intertwined with his fingers.
When you're a migrant kid, and you spend your life picking peaches and tomatoes in the hot sun of humid days, your hands grow like the fruits and vegetables of spring and summer, but the rest of you withers away like vines of winter and fall.
He squeezed her hand, and she could feel the beating of his heart in her hand, and she felt it deeply inside of her, and she turned and looked into his eyes.
'I understand,' she whispered, and he could feel tenderness deeply inside of him, as he looked into her deep brown eyes.
When you're an indigenous kid in the Arctic, and you spend your life building and mending under the small sun of frozen days, your heart grows beautiful and mysterious, like the great bowhead whales under the ice, but the rest of you bends against the harsh, bitter winds of the ocean.
They both turned again and looked out over the water at the setting sun.
Tears welled up in the corners of their eyes and dropped down their cold cheeks into the icy Chukchi Sea.
And they knew human kindness, and felt the warm tears of love.
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