I am over in Ireland just now on a family visit to an ailing father. The travel and the gravity of it all would be grinding, if not for two things. Firstly, I am not alone because Will, my adult son, is with me, driving the hire car and keeping things light and level. After the care home bedside we raised a Guiness together in my father’s favourite bar. Now we wait at the airport, sad but despite it all, something deep is shifted.
The other reason I feel blessed is because of an awareness privilege of belonging. I am an outsider by temperament but my place in things is held by the padded fabric of goodness that others do not benefit from. The streets of Belfast are full of them. It breaks my heart.
Here in a land I have never lived I have status. Ihave citizenship. I have family. I am travelling not away but towards.
in this place where there had been so much violence and flag waving I am safe.
This poem comes to mind.
Nationality
I don’t believe in borders
Or the tyranny of maps
I fear the way they fence us in
And split the white from black
So I will not raise up Saltires
Nor wave the Union Jack
I will not sing those angry songs
My troops will not attack
What makes us what we are?
Whose stories are we telling?
What mix of blood pumps through these veins
Whose products are we selling?
What shades of grey do we convey?
Whose history compelling?
Who pipes the tunes, who reads the runes?
In whose land are we dwelling?
Send them out then bring them home
Let roads be laid wide open
This way of love, the pilgrim path
Requires walls to be broken
Then we lay down in fold of ground
Where soil is warm and welcome
The crops we sow must surely grow
For the rains fill up the ocean
Chris Goan
