A Journey into Peace Building

This afternoon, I depart for Northern Ireland to spend time in person with a leadership cohort I’ve been a part of this year.  We’ve met regularly since February online learning about conflict competent leadership in ministry.  We will spend time in Belfast and the Corrymeela Community (https://www.corrymeela.org/) learning about the work done to achieve the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 that ended the violent conflict of the previous 30 years and the on going work of peace building that enables people of different backgrounds to live well together.  

This isn’t just a trip to learn history but to be shaped by the understanding gained by the people who have navigated the extremely challenging conversations that brought two sides of a centuries old conflict to a place of peace building.  We are learning all of this to become peace builders ourselves.  The world needs more peace builders – in our individual relationships and families, in our communities, in our country, and the world.  Jesus shows us in flesh and blood how to be peace builders.

Peace building is hard work.  It requires that we are grounded in who and Whose we are as God’s beloved.  Only when we know we are beloved can we truly see others as beloved and become the image bearers we are made to be.  Peace building requires that we are willing to be fully human with each other, acknowledging our own limitations, wounds, and faults and doing our own healing work so that we are able to respond to what is going on around us from a place of compassion.  Peace building requires that we see others as people in relationship not someone to fix, an obstacle to overcome, or a competitor.  We have to truly be present to one another, not just with our attendance but with our curious attention that immerses us in their experience.  Peace building is how we live into God’s Kingdom-on-earth-as-in-heaven.  

So, I ask your prayers that I will be open to the formation that these next ten days will bring for me, that I will be able to courageously use what I’ve learned to help build peace and bring others into peace building, to have the eyes to see and ears to hear what it is I need to see and hear from those I’m with and from God.  

I’ll post as often as I’m able about what we are doing.  

Keep lovin’ louder than the hate, Y’all!