Spirit of Enniskillen

One of the joys of this sabbatical has been the people I have met along the way, many of whom come from backgrounds very different from mine.  While staying at the Catholic House of Prayer, I had the opportunity to get to know a nun living in a religious community in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. She told me a story from the horrendous IRA bombing that took place there in November 1987 that illustrates the nature of forgiveness and the power of the cross to change people's lives and a nation's future.  The bomb was intended to kill soldiers as they marched in a Remembrance Day parade, but the timer malfunctioned, and the bomb detonated, killing 11 people, most of them elderly.  One of the dead was a young nurse named Marie Wilson.  She was standing with her father Gordon when the blast occurred, and as they lay covered with rubble in the aftermath, her concern was for him and his well-being.  In interviews, he movingly described these moments:

“She held my hand tightly and gripped me as hard as she could.  She said, ‘Daddy, I love you very much’.Those were her exact words to me and those were the last words I ever heard her say. But I bear no ill will. I bear no grudge.Dirty sort of talk is not going to bring her back to life. She was a great wee lassie. She loved her profession. She was a pet. She’s dead. She’s in heaven and we shall meet again. I will pray for these men tonight and every night.”

Gordon Wilson, a devout Methodist, chose the harder path of forgiveness, urging that there be no reprisals from the loyalists in response to the bombing, and he went on to become a voice for peace in the midst of "The Troubles," even being invited to join the Irish Senate.  This event and Gordon Wilson's courage and forgiveness of the perpetrators of the attack eventually led to a major shift in attitudes towards the violence that plagued the land, often called the Spirit of Enniskillen, and his quiet example of Christ-like love and forgiveness, bought at a terrible price, changed hearts and no doubt saved lives in the bloody struggles there.

I don't offer this as a feel-good story during a bleak and dark week in the United States but instead as a sign of hope that is not cheaply come by, not glibly spoken of, and not easily clung to.   One reporter who interviewed both Nelson Mandela and Gordon Wilson said that Mandela assured him that just as South Africa had lived through its national nightmare, so would Northern Ireland.  What God hath wrought in those two troubled places, surely the glory and love of the crucified Christ can also bring to fruition in our troubled nation and indeed in our broken world.  It takes great courage to forgive rather than seeking the destruction of someone who wrongs us, and there were those who refused to do business at Wilson's drapery shop as a result of his actions, but this one ordinary man's quiet refusal to hate even when it would have been the easiest thing in the world shines as a beacon of light in a world threatened by shadow.  I pray that you and I will have the courage to choose what is right rather than what is easy in the days that lie ahead.