10 Things I’ve Found ‘Hard’ about Being the Minister’s Husband

When I say ‘hard’, I don’t necessarily mean they keep me awake at night.
Just some of them have pushed my buttons at certain times. And maybe some have kept me up at night on occasions, like the other night when something started gnawing at the back of my mind and I got restless.

Also I know that life is hard for everybody, that nobody has an easy time of it. You could have 10 Things I’ve Found ‘Hard’ about being married to a farmer, or  teacher, or a nurse or not being married, or on and on.
So this is just my angle on some things that I’ve found in particular about being a minister’s husband.

1 You can’t just talk about stuff. Or it sometimes feels that way.
Like I couldn’t  go  into specific details of things here on the blog or in a Facebook post about something in particular that we might be struggling with. It might be a pastoral issue or it might be some story that breaks your heart but you can’t share. I mightn’t feel comfortable talking to people in church about it, which is hard as I’ve always thought that church is the place where you should be able to share things that are difficult. I won’t feel comfortable talking to people outside the church as they mightn’t get understand the intricacies of church.

2 Probably tied up with this is a sense of loneliness and isolation. You might feel like you’ve no support or that nobody understands what it’s like to be a minister’s husband in your particular situation.  Even finding something like thoughts about what it’s like to be minister’s husband online is tricky. I guess that loneliness and a sense of isolation is a universal thing we all feel.

3 You don’t necessarily know how to react if you feel that people are treating the minister unfairly.
If they are judging without knowing the whole picture.
Or if you feel they’re taking the mick a bit and looking for something they need then disappearing when they get it.
The judging thing often isn’t church people, it is a feeling that there is a large segment Irish society who don’t have any time for organised religion and are ready to run over people involved in organised religion, especially church leaders. Maybe it’s the subtle threat of persecution? Even when you hear people taking the mickey out of Christians you might feel your hackles go up. I’ve heard people down at the pub saying things about the religious that they never say about  other group in Irish society
It’s hard because your natural reaction is to protect and you might be  angry, but you might feel an extra pressure to keep a lid on it what with the whole loving your enemy thing and showing grace (because we’re all sinners).

4 You can have a sense of helplessness or powerless at things that can’t be controlled.
Or maybe a better way of putting it is you’re aware of the brokenness of the world?
A minister is a bit of point person for stuff and we often want to talk to minister’s when things are hard or we’re struggling. So maybe that rubs a bit of on me? I know people are really struggling out there. I’d be a bit of a glass half empty type by  nature so hearing some of the stories can sometimes make me sad and wonder how to make things better for people.You can feel a bit powerless in the face of something like a housing crisis or unemployment, sickness, family disputes etc.  I know the Sunday School answer is to pray or Jesus, and I should do it more. But sometimes (or even a lot ) or time it isn’t that easy.

5 Sometimes you feel guilty that you don’t do more to support or help. To me it’s a bit like if you married a musician and every Sunday they’re playing a gig that you feel you have to go to as support as it’s an important gig. The church service sometimes feels like a ‘gig’.
In other ‘jobs’ you wouldn’t feel a pressure to support them when they went to work. But in Presbyterian circles with the sermon and Sunday morning worship being such a big deal you know that doing a sermon is a big deal and want to be supportive.
But sometimes you might be dealing with things in your own life like feeling low or discouraged yourself and want to stay in bed, or you might just be feeling overwhelmed and want to hide in a corner. If you’re self employed and trying to make money you might feel the pressure to work when something is on though strictly speaking you could go along.

6 Tied in with this it can be hard to worship as an ‘ordinary worshipper’. Or at least that is my experience.
For example it’s hard for me to separate the minister and the wife. During the week there is give and take in conversation, you talk a bit, they talk a bit, back and forth. Then suddenly you’re in church and you’re not having a conversation, you’re being talked to for 20mins  in a sermon. Is it your wife or a minister (or both?) giving it. I find it a bit disorientating trying to work out what voice is talking to me sometimes.

7 I think some people assume that you’re going to agree with them about certain issues based on that fact that you’re married to female minister. Maybe you’re seen as being more open minded, cool and less of a ‘tight boy’, or more of a liberal if you want to put it that way. Sometimes it’s feel like people might make assumptions that you agree with stuff that you mightn’t necessarily agree, or you might be on their side on certain issues.

8 I think it would be easier to be married to a female minister in other denominations than my own. I’m not looking to be invited to lunches and meet-ups, just more a general attitude than having a minister spouse who is a man is a normal thing. I’m not looking recognition for myself but just a church that seems to recognise it’s normal.

9 I don’t know how to phrase this but I guess that you could sometimes covet what other churches seem to have, because if you had just a little of what other churches had it might make the life of your minister and church easier?
For example, you might think of some small town in Northern Ireland that might have a pile of Presbyterian churches nearby, all with decent toilets and a hall and you might get annoyed that you’re sitting in a major city of Ireland with the Sunday school meeting in mouldy, damp rusty storage container. The reason is that stuff like maintenance or upkeep of the building can add stress to the minister, which might stress to the life of the spouse.

10 This hasn’t been a problem so much out west, but in the past I’ve felt judged by default by people who believe that women shouldn’t be church leaders and that men and women should have certain roles. I assume that if someone believes that it isn’t God’s will that a woman should be a minister then they’d also assume that the husband is in the wrong as well, because he hasn’t been doing the whole head of the household thing or something. As I said, not a problem here but there have been times when I’ve felt like that before.

turn or burn

I did my degree in Environmental chemistry from ’96 – ’99 and before that in high school we were taught about global warming.
It doesn’t seem like that long ago in one way but another way it was 25 years ago.
I have known about things like global warming for that long.

Yet here we are, here I am.  The world is in grave peril and we’re still not really prepared to do anything about it apart from a few token gestures. We need to get a grip. Our governments need to get a grip

This needs completely radical action. Especially from us who have lived in the ‘developed’ world. As we’re the ones who have frittered away so much of the earths resources through our wasteful consumption.

We may think it is normal to live with certain things, but the fact is that we’ve been greedy. We taken more than our fair share. We need to change our ways. An old Christian word would probably be ‘repent’. We need to start repenting. To borrow an old phrase we need to ‘turn or burn’.

The Night Before the Final

It’s the last day in May, 2019. I’m nervous and excited.
I hope Spurs win tomorrow night but I will try to not get too deflated if they don’t.

It is only a game after all.

Yet despite logically knowing it’s only a game I would still really like to see Spurs win something big for once in my lifetime. Because the big fear is that we might never get another chance. We aren’t serial winners of anything, which in a way suits me as I’d feel guilty if we started winning everything.

Yes, football is only a game and yet it may often seem like more than that.
In many ways it has become one of the most constant thing in my life, an anchor during my time here when so much has been changing.

Life in Galway always seems to be in flux,  people trundling bags around the place looking for their Airbnb, people coming and then going out of your life, slightly guarded neighbours.
I’ve found it hard to make friends for different reasons over the last 6 years while feeling disconnected from the ones I had, the world is hard to get a handle on. So because you feel a bit isolated and lonely it means you’re ready to join a club or tribe, or maybe become more a bit more embroiled in one you are already a member of.

And so it is that Spurs have been something of a constant and something I feel like I have managed to get a handle on.
In a world of constant flux and change is something that helps make sense of things. Because it’s fundamentally the same as it’s always been except for the odd tweak here and there. Football has pretty much remained unchanged since I started watching it unlike many other things. Which I value in a world of flux.
I understand why following a team can become something akin to a religion for some people. They know the rules and can follow what happens. At the end of the game there is usually some type of result that can be understood and processed. It’s like if you cut the grass or paint a wall, you can see the result of your work and know where you stand. It’s nice to have results, especially if you do art or some other jobs where its hard to measure results.

At the end of the season you finish in a certain position. You feel like you might belong to some sort of a community or tribe where you hold certain opinions and things in common without embarrassment.  You might make friends through it and feel less alone.
Yes, it’s only a game but there is something about the game that plugs into very real human needs. I  can see why some people treat sport like something akin to a religion.

Mauricio Pochettino arrived not long after we arrived here, which has also coincided with Spurs actually being pretty good. They challenged for a league title the year Leicester won, they’ve played good football and the mentality of being ‘Spursy’ is slowly being shaken off.  So it’s hard to explain but the journey of my strange time here Galway is roughly tied up this current version of Tottenham Hotspur.

And now, tomorrow night they’re playing in the biggest club final of the lot, the Champions League final. Unbelievable!

Stupid people think that the only thing that matters is winning a trophy. If that was the case there would be little or no enjoyment for the vast number of fans. I’ve enjoyed this season so much with a couple of the best football games I’ve ever seen. If there is one word to describe the journey so far I’d pick the word ‘grace’. It’s the moment when you think that Spurs are going to get through against Man City, only for Sterling to score and you sink because that’s Spurs being Spurs….only for this new thing called VAR coming into play and changing the reality again. It’s when you’re 3-0 down at Ajax and the Lucas Moura sweeps the ball into the goal last seconds and you’re going through.

Because of those moments of grace (or luck!) in getting this far I’d like to think that losing the final to Liverpool won’t matter so much. It’s been so much fun coming so far that you’ll always remember those unexpected results.

On the other hand though maybe I’m writing my first blog in ages the night before the Champions League final as this feeling of excitement, hope, possibilities might be the pinnacle of my experience as a Spurs fan, so I just want to enjoy it before Liverpool thump us 4-1 or something like that and I feel miserable for the rest of the weekend.

Anyway, may the best team win and COYS! (obviously)

When you play like that it’s OK to lose

Playing a staid and a standardized football, is that really playing?…To win without magic, without surprise or beauty, isn’t that worse than losing? In 1994, during the Spanish championship, Real Madrid were defeated by Sporting Gijon. But the men of Real Madrid played with enthusiasm, a word that originally meant ‘having the gods within’. The coach, Jorge Valdano, beamed at the players in the dressing room: ‘When you play like that,’ he told them ‘it’s OK to lose.’

Eduardo Galeano, Football in Sun and Shadow

I regret (Google Autocomplete)

A lot of things, adopting, all my decisions, all my tattoos, abortion.
Breaking up with him, being a doctor, buying my house, becoming a doctor, being born.
Cutting my hair, cutting my hair short, cheating, cutting my hair, college.
Dumping her, dumping him, divorcing my wife, doing something, dating my ex.
Everything, everything I do.

For my mistake, falling in love with you, falling in love
Getting married, gastric sleeve, going to college, getting bangs, getting a puppy.
Having children, having a child, having a baby, hurting her, hurting you.
It
Joining a soroity, joining the military, joining the airforce, joining the navy, joining a fraternity
Knowing you, kissing him, keeping my baby, kissing my friends.

Letting him go, leaving my wife for another woman, leaving her for someone else, leaving my family for another woman
My abortion, marrying my husband, my life choices, meeting you, my tattoo.
Nothing
Opeing up, only sleeping with one person
Pushing her away, pushing him away, perming my hair, parenthood
Quitting my job, quitting, quitting baseball

Rejecting him, rejecting her, rejecting the nice guy, retiring early, resigning
So much, sleeping with my ex, studying abroad, sleeping with him, sleeping around
To inform you, that I have but one life, the day I met you, the time I wasted
Using her, using steroids, unfriending my ex, university, unfriending.
Voting, voting for Hilary, voting leave
What I did, what I said, wasting my time
buying an X Box
You
Friendzoning him, moving to New Zealand

on being a minister’s husband in a certain denomination

I have been pondering the issue of women in church leadership a lot for the last few weeks.

If you don’t know me you might be thinking ‘OK, that’s a pretty weird thing to be thinking about’ :but it’s not for me. Because unusually  I’ve found myself attending a church where the minister is a woman.

And even more unusually I happen to be married to her.

I’m not talking about her though (well I am I suppose….but not really). I’m talking about things from my perspective.

In a way my perspective is even less common than that of female minister in PCI, it’s that of a husband of PCI minister. I’m a freak!

This pondering started when I unknowingly switched on coverage from the General Assembly at the start of the month. Bad decision!
I was at home by myself as ___ was up at the Assembly for the week. 2 trains journeys up, a long way to go. There was a round of applause at a certain point of debate that seemed to coincide with a male minister saying that he didn’t think biblically that women should be ordained. (People have told me that the applause might have been for other stuff but the way I perceived it was that the applause for ‘no women’ was much louder that for a few speakers before hand who were thinking about how more women could be encouraged to become ministers.)

I heard that some people had been heckling when a women minister was speaking.
I’ve heard some people worrying that someday they might want to take a vote on the issue. (I’m not sure if that’s people worrying over nothing but even so, why would they be worried enough to think that?)

So when I hear the principle of the denominational training college on national radio a few days later saying that ideally he would probably prefer to not be training women for the task of leading a church I’m not really sure how to react as a Christian and as a husband of women minister. Because somehow with the mystery of marriage there is a ‘two-become-one’ sort of thing going on. Or at least that’s what I think is going on. I’m not really sure sometimes. I’ve no blueprint for this stuff!

My more balanced friends emphasis the need to allow people their conscience,
to show grace,
to treat it as a secondary issue and not get hung up over it,
to not question if that is the ideal position for someone in charge of running the training college to hold.

It feels like they want to put the ball in my court to deal with my issues, my anger or lack of grace, almost as it’s my fault that this is becoming an issue, that I don’t really understand the good news by getting annoyed or that I shouldn’t be moaning about it all the time. According to some my soul is even at risk for getting so worked up over a secondary issue .

I know we’re to forgive people and treat them with grace and love. We’re brothers and sisters in the Lord. But at what point do you go ‘Hold on, I don’t think you’re treating other people fairly… ‘ And how loudly do you shout about it?

When I listened to the radio interview I could hear nervousness in the voice and appreciate the bravery and honesty. I also deeply value my freedom and conscience so agree we shouldn’t be forcing people to go against their conscience.

But as a husband who upped sticks and moved from a place he enjoyed so that his wife could train for ministry in a place he mightn’t have chosen for himself it’s hard not to question if it’s an ideal position for someone who is principle to hold. Perhaps I’ve an insight into how much of cold house it might have been for a women minister in PCI and would question if it’s going to make other gifted women feel like they would be treated fairly in the college or would encourage them to want to study there?

If we were living in Dublin now and thinking about moving to Belfast so that ____ could train for 4 or 5 years and heard that interview I’d still appreciate the honesty, recognise the need for people to have their conscience but my primary thought would be:-

‘The principle of the college has just told us that he personally doesn’t agree with what we thought God was calling __ to do. It’s hard enough moving from a community that values us to new place without being unsure if people actually want you there. I’m not sure we belong in this denomination, it feels like they’re saying you’re sloppy seconds’

That’s what I’d think anyway.

In part I’m annoyed because I nearly see it as a gospel issue, not some secondary issue.

Because although it doesn’t have anything to do with whether you’re saved or not surely it might have something to do with whether other people are saved or not?

It might discourage a gifted women enough to stop her thinking she could use her gifts to reach people for Jesus . If you’re a Christian and you’re hindering or discouraging people from using their God given gifts for the sake of some ‘secondary issue’ maybe it’s becoming more than a secondary issue? You don’t have to be out with placards, you can be friendly and polite but still be saying.that ‘I don’t want to encourage this person to be a church leader as much as I could as I think it’s unbiblical and a gospel issue’.

If you want to reach Ireland with the good news of Jesus you need men and women using their gifts. And sometimes I wonder if PCI is happy to become a place that says ‘We don’t really want women using their gifts in this particular church leading way’. Which annoys me because people are putting good news road blocks in the way.

Especially maybe the people who are telling me this is a secondary issue. If you really think it’s a secondary issue why not do more to encourage women who might be gifted but not feel encouraged?  

 

soil and soul

Wind.
Windy outside.
Friday night in Galway, post G & T, wind whistling down the chimney.
I don’t blog much these days. A lot of creative energy has been hurled into making maps and researching Irish place names, or exploring countries online. I’ve been obsessed and working hard. I don’t feel I take much time to reflect much on my life and the direction it’s been going. Perhaps there is a reason for that?
Perhaps I’m terrified to stop and assess because I’ll feel like I’ve not made a success of my life or something. Also I’m more scared of being vulnerable because I’m more aware of the inter-connections and ties that bind us. I might want to be honest but what if my honesty is insensitive and hurtful to others?
But perhaps I’ve swung too far and bottling stuff up or keeping my head buried in art work is hurtful to me.
There is no doubt to me that technology has been detrimental to certain aspects of my life. It’s gotten to the stage where being connected to the internet almost seems like a basic human right. It’s not but sometimes it seems that way.

Anyway, perhaps I need to spend more time reflecting on my life. On my soul.

And to get back to the garden and dig my deep beds for some vegetables. Or herbs. The snails don’t seem to want to eat my flat leaf parsley so I will grow lots this year.Enough for my favourite pasta tomato sauce recipe. Enough for my potato soup. Enough to make ‘pesto’ and Middle Eastern recipe that I’ve forgotten the name off but needs loads of parsley.

And to plant some basil if I can. I’ll freeze the leaves so it can go in my other favourite tomato sauce.

I need to get back to the soil and my soul again. I feel so jaded this weather.

long nights

It’s one of the darkest for longest days of the year.
There is a storm in the garden.
The sun isn’t up yet.
I’m in the dark.

When I was a bit younger I used to feel like it was easier to be honest with other people about how I was really doing inside.
10 years ago I used to write songs about what was going on inside me and express things that way. If it was self absorbed like a teenagers journal I didn’t care, I just wanted to get it from inside me and out instead of absorbing it into myself.

Then I moved to Belfast. I never wanted to go and perhaps I ended up resenting it a bit. I hoped that although I knew it would be difficult that I’d settle in the church and area and grow to love it.
I never did.
Things went the other way. I found the Lagan Valley dark and cold, gloomy and grey. One of my first experiences of Lisburn was going to get my hair cut and the hairdresser taking the piss out of my hair and sneering.

Nowadays I don’t feel that I can express myself with honesty. It’s like you have to bury how you’re really feeling or doing.

Firstly I’m more aware of being married, that I might be dragging someone else into proceedings if I write a song that says how I’m doing. 10 yrs ago I wasn’t married so an honest song wasn’t so tangled up in another relationship. And other relationships like family members.

Then I’ve taken onboard church family.
10 years ago I wasn’t married to the minister of a church. So if church and Christianity is doing my head in it’s not as easy as writing a blog and saying what’s annoying me. You’re suddenly married to the person who most likely has to deal with the stuff you might be moaning about or find difficult. You don’t want to make their life more difficult or complicate things by saying what you find difficult .

You are also more aware of people getting older and how the responsibility of being a mature voice or example might now fall on you. You might feel like there is an onus on you to be a tower of strength or to make sure people get through things as you’ve been blessed by people being that way to you and now it’s time to give something back. So perhaps you ‘suck it up’ a bit because you think that it have to be strong for the sake of other people who seem to be having a tougher time.

What do you do though when you feel weak and inept? Or when you’re aware of being all over the place and just about coping and that you haven’t even had things that bad happen.
I’m aware that I haven’t had to cope with a lot of personal tragedy in my life. So the question I ask myself is how I will cope when it does happen. If I feel this inept so far how will I cope when the hard things come?

It’s one of the darkest for longest days of the year.
There is a storm in the garden.
The sun isn’t up yet.
I’m in the dark.

We Couldn’t Imagine What it Was (Illinois)

Last night there was a mysterious and beautiful triangle of stars over Galway Bay, hanging above the Aran Islands or Black Head, mysterious lights in the southern sky that had me wondering as I was wandering.

Saturn, Mars and Antares.

I’d been thinking about 3 lights all week as I’ve been re-engrossed by Sufjan Stevens Illinoise album all over again.
I’ve been making a lot of US state maps and when I came to Illinois  put on the headphones while painting.
Making the map made me appreciate anew what an amazing album this is. It’s actually an amazing work of creative art in my opinion. Playful and joyful, sad and serious, a bit barmy and silly puns in places, like short stories sung. It’s  uncomfortable listening to songs about child killers as well but you’ll find yourself singing along.

The music can be a bit juddery and stop start but there is a bit on the second track that makes me smile every time. The horns or whatever they are keep building up and sound to me like it’s going to turn into the theme music of ‘Ski Sunday’ or ‘Rainbow’.
It’s a bit of a mysterious album. Where did it come from? What’s it trying to say?

The opening track about a UFO sighting near Highland, Illinois is as mysterious to me as the stuff he is singing about. What did people see? What was going on? What sort of way is this to start an album?
But whenever I hear words like incarnation and stories of stars I’m taken back to Christmas and a different sort of mystery taking form and shape. Yet that is mingling with some sort of mysterious UFO sighting. What’s he saying?

Anyway, it’s the sort of  infectious creativity that I’m drawn to and like to draw to.
I doodled the picture last week before the clouds parted and I noticed the 3 mysterious lights in the sky over Galway Bay last night. So now I’m wondering if it’s linked. Am I being whispered to or am I just noticing things that have always been there?

When I was walking home the other night along a dark path there was a man silently sitting on a rock looking out across the sea and toward the sky. He seemed to be embracing the beauty and mystery whereas my immediate reaction was to find out what the stars were from Google Sky Map or to blog about my experience (like I’m doing now) or thinking about something I could make.
I wish I had the patience and peace to sit out and pray silently a bit more, to be at peace without thinking how I could use this experience for something or how that moment could be added to that thing to make something. I wish that I was less addicted to the light of these glowing glass rectangles and could embrace the mystery and silence a bit more. Maybe a bit like it says in Psalm 131.

‘I do not concern myself with great matters
    or things too wonderful for me.
² But I have calmed and quieted myself,
    I am like a weaned child with its mother;
    like a weaned child I am content.’

dividing walls

Do you remember that time Ian Paisley rocked up to the European Parliament to heckle the Pope? Maybe you’re too young so here is the Youtube clip

I would have been 10 yrs old at the time and this is my earliest memory of the European Union.

Growing up in rural Ulster I can’t think of any time that I met someone from another European country. There might have been families involved with the British Army so a few English accents around but  no French, German, Spanish that I remember.

Countries like Poland or Romania were still Communist so there where certainly no eastern European accents.

It was just the United Kingdom that mattered really,  identity was defined by people hanging out the Union Jack around the 12th, things such as visits from members of the British Royal family, TV from the BBC, history that focused on British aspects more than Irish. I remember going to Donegal and Rosnowlagh as a kid so I did go over the border for a trip or two but I wasn’t exposed to anyone from another culture than my own for most of my childhood.

(When I say culture I don’t even mean people in my area because if they happened to be Roman Catholic we had no dealings with them either….)

It was sheltered.
Not necessarily out of choice because these where the days before Ryanair  and budget airlines and cheap flights to places all over Europe.
It was the days before we all had these computers linked together with the internet.
If you’re from Northern Ireland it was the days of border checkpoints and British Army watchtowers, Chinook helicopters letting the Parachute Regiment out in fields around Tyrone,terrorist attacks, bombs under cars.

Now look at us!

Although there are hard line Republicans out there who still want to cause mayhem it’s not a nightly occurrence to read about some death and families grieving after another bomb goes off.

And sure isn’t that great?
You can drive over the border without members of the British security forces checking under your wheel arch. You don’t see or hear the Puma, Chinook, Gazelle, Wessex flying around.
There are two different countries but it’s like we’re friends who trust each other a bit more.

I know there are lots of reasons for the Good Friday agreement but I think a part of it had to do with us realising there was more to the world than us thanks to globalisation. I don’t know what I mean by globalisation except a sense that the world has become smaller and more interconnected which means there is more to the world than being Unionist or Republican.
People could afford to go on holidays to other parts of Europe instead of the caravan up in Portrush. Maybe we started seeing workmates from Poland or Portugal. The internet means we can see Youtube clips from all over the world. All the TV channels have now!

So that is one of the reasons I am upset about the EU Referendum and people who want to leave.  I think that it’ll put barriers up between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland when we’ve had enough of that already. Our island has been divided by so much over the centuries that to harden a border at a stage when we’ve been getting on so well isn’t a good idea.

Of course the EU is far from perfect. Far far from perfect.

But the people leading the charge for leave the EU don’t seem to me to be perfect. Did people not notice the cruelty of some of those Tory leaders the last few years?

The scary thought though is that people actually did see the cruelty of some of those leaders and think that they’re right.

I find nearly every reason given for those wanting to remain to jar with thinks I think about life (though fail to live up to)
Almost all of it seems to be driven by a selfish desire to make Britain First (a bit like Donald Trump wanting to make America Great Again). They want to be able to make their own trade deals with other countries free from interference from Europe and do what’s  right by the British people.

I get why a non-Christian would want to do that, but as a Christian I don’t see how I am supposed to favour any nation above another. Complicated though it is to get my head around I should be just as concerned about the welfare of people in Hungary, Greece, Austria than the people in my own country. Because my primary citizenship is as a member of the Kingdom of God.

As member of the Kingdom of God I have been charged with being a peacemaker  ‘and if it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone’ as the Bible says

How many times have I prayed for things to be on earth as they are in heaven?
I heaven I can’t see how there will be any borders, fences, checkpoints, dividing walls between people. I know this is a fallen, broken world and things are far from ideal.

But if there is a democratic choice between building up a border and keep it relatively open what should a Christian do?

A couple of years ago my neighbour built up this wall between his garden and ours so that I couldn’t see into his garden.

He didn’t ask for permission, he waited until he was on holidays and then his builders came into our garden, stood on my vegetable patch and made a sort of Berlin Wall between us.

I was so mad at the time because it seemed to me that he was ruling out any sort of relationship with me.
It seemed like he wanted to live in his little kingdom without interference from people he didn’t think he should have to have a relationship with. It was as if I was below him, that he was OK without having me in his life.Of course he didn’t have to ask for permission or say what he was planning to do because he was within his rights to build it.

His wall changed our relationship and now I avoid gardening when they are out in case I lash out at him. I should forgive and move on over such a small matter…but it’s symbolic to me of something deeper. It seems nobody wants to be a good neighbour anymore, we’re all too busy looking after our own patch.

And in my view the world is a more poorer, angrier place because of the walls we build.