This is just me processing, so please take it all with a
grain of salt and remember grace. I don’t pretend to understand all I see
fully, but I seek to do the best I can with the insight I am given.
I’ve been living in Ireland for about a month and a half and
yesterday was my first pub day. It’s just generally not a normal thing for me
to go to pubs and the only thing that pulls me there is the possibility of
hearing live traditional Irish music. I have loved Irish music since my first
exposure to it—something just lights up in my soul when I hear those melodies.
So, it was a little Kansas girl’s birthday and we ventured
into the scene…and it was a scene, not pretty. I just couldn’t get
comfortable—and partly it was that none of my silly expectations were met. We
trekked to several pubs, none of them had live music going and then we finally
stayed at one pub, but when the music came on at nearly 11 o’clock, it was all
just rock and roll covers. I’m watching Irish students trying to be American
singers and everything in me realizes how wrong this is: I just know that this
nation is one which has a beautiful soul, hidden underneath a lot of despair
and regret and things lost. And when I see them just copying someone else (and
my culture at that) and not being true to the creativity, joy and hope which is
central to this nation, it makes me go a little crazy inside. I know there’s
more. I know you were made for ore. I know that joy and deep hope can burn in
you—if you’ll just move forward into knowing who you are and what you are made
for.
When we finally left, I went winging out, kicking my legs in
the air and just ranting about passion that draws people in and identity and…it
was overwhelming, this rising up in me. I just love my city and I hate to see
them living half-hearted lives when so much life is available and offered to
them. And I don’t hate pubs, I might end up playing at one of them in the
future: I just hate seeing people be inauthentic. We were each made unique with
beautiful gifts and talents which, when handed over to the Lord, will become beautiful
glimpses of all that He is in all His creativity and joy and diversity. I want
people to become completely themselves, aware of their identity and redeemed to
go victoriously out to become all that He made them to be.
That’s all I want.
That’s it really.
That’s all I want.
This school has been incredible. And the girls want to get
out and do life where others can see, not just be in our building. So we are
going to go out and do some ‘busking’ (street performing) next Saturday, the 5th.
Please be praying for us as we go, that the atmosphere of the city would be
changed, and life would come as people stop and ask, what is this?
There is a deep hunger in people, that they can’t recognize
or access on one level because they’ve never been exposed to anything which
causes the hunger to arise.
Pray for hunger in Sligo city. Pray against ritual and
legalism and that people will have encounters with the living God.
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